In many villages across Eastern Nigeria, the change was noticed before hunger reached the table. Morning compounds that had once stirred with familiar movements fell quiet. Chickens no longer scratched at the soil. Goats no longer wandered between cooking fires and doorways. The absence was subtle at first, but unmistakable. Long before visible starvation set in, ordinary life had begun to unravel.
During the Nigerian Civil War, livestock disappeared from daily existence across much of the Eastern Region. For families living under the tightening conditions of the Biafran conflict, animals were among the earliest casualties. Their loss marked the beginning of a deeper crisis, one that would eventually be measured not only in empty farms but in weakened bodies and stunted childhoods.
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Animals as the backbone of survival
Before the war, livestock in Eastern Nigeria rarely symbolised excess or commercial wealth. Poultry, goats, and occasional cattle were practical assets tied directly to survival. Eggs extended meals. Meat appeared sparingly, reserved for illness, ritual, or crisis. Animals could be sold in emergencies or exchanged when cash was unavailable. They represented food, security, and resilience combined.
When these animals vanished, diets narrowed almost immediately. Protein sources that households relied upon disappeared, leaving families increasingly dependent on limited plant-based substitutes. Under normal conditions, such losses might have been temporary. During the war, recovery was impossible.
Blockade and agricultural collapse
The federal blockade imposed on Biafra severed external trade and restricted internal movement of food and supplies. This isolation crippled the region’s ability to replenish lost livestock or stabilise food systems. Feed supplies dwindled. Veterinary services collapsed. Even households that attempted to protect animals struggled to keep them alive amid shortages and displacement.
Hunger did not arrive suddenly. It advanced in stages, closely following the disappearance of animals that had quietly sustained daily life. By the time starvation became visible on human bodies, the agricultural foundations of survival had already been dismantled.
Livestock as a target of war
In many modern conflicts, agriculture becomes a strategic vulnerability because it sustains civilians rather than armies. Crops, storage systems, and animals form the invisible infrastructure of survival. Their destruction weakens populations without the need for continuous combat.
Available historical material indicates that the depletion of livestock in the Eastern Region functioned within this broader pattern. While direct, detailed records attributing systematic livestock destruction to named actors within Biafra remain limited, the outcomes are unmistakable. Comparative studies of African conflict zones document deliberate attacks on livestock through looting, slaughter, and the destruction of veterinary and feed infrastructure. The consequences observed in Eastern Nigeria mirror these documented patterns.
Protein deficiency and the spread of disease
As animals disappeared, hunger deepened. Protein deficiency spread rapidly, particularly among children. Kwashiorkor became widespread across the region, a condition marked by swollen abdomens, wasting limbs, skin lesions, and weakened immune systems. Medical and humanitarian records from the period consistently link its prevalence to the collapse of protein intake rather than simple caloric shortage.
Even where some food was available, bodies failed. Without meat, eggs, or milk, diets could not sustain growth or immunity. Illnesses that might once have been survivable became fatal. Children, with their limited reserves and high nutritional needs, were the most vulnerable. Many declined with alarming speed.
The economic loss beneath the hunger
The disappearance of livestock carried consequences beyond nutrition. Animals had anchored household economies. They were savings, insurance, and sustenance rolled into one. Their loss stripped families of flexibility and resilience. Survival narrowed to what could be gathered, grown, or improvised under increasingly hostile conditions.
Adults weakened as well. With reduced strength, farming declined further, accelerating food shortages. The cycle tightened relentlessly. Fewer animals meant less food, and less food meant less capacity to produce anything at all.
Normalising deprivation
By the later stages of the war, the absence of livestock no longer shocked anyone. It had become part of daily reality. Compounds once alive with animal movement stood silent. Diets adjusted not by choice but by necessity. Hunger was no longer an emergency. It was structural.
Studies of war-affected agricultural zones show that livestock losses in conflict settings can reach extreme levels, with cattle reductions of up to 74 percent and poultry losses as high as 87 percent. While exact figures for Biafra vary and are not uniformly recorded, the scale of devastation in the Eastern Region aligns closely with these findings.
After the war, silence remained
When the fighting ended, the animals did not return. Rebuilding livestock populations required time, resources, and stability, all of which were scarce in the post-war landscape. For many families, the loss marked a permanent rupture from pre-war food security and household resilience.
The disappearance of livestock altered not only diets but the rhythm of daily life and the fragile boundary between endurance and collapse. Long after weapons fell silent, the empty spaces where animals once lived continued to shape hunger, recovery, and memory.
What the absence reveals
The near-total loss of livestock in Eastern Nigeria stands as a reminder that war destroys far more than lives and buildings. It dismantles the quiet systems that sustain survival. In those silences left behind, the true cost of conflict became visible, measured not in battles or borders, but in the slow struggle to rebuild lives stripped down to their most fragile limits.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
This article examines how the collapse of livestock populations during the Nigerian Civil War contributed directly to starvation, disease, and long-term food insecurity in Eastern Nigeria. By tracing the loss of animals alongside blockade conditions and agricultural breakdown, it highlights how civilian survival systems were systematically undermined. The story underscores that famine was not a sudden event but a process rooted in the destruction of everyday resilience.
REFERENCES
- de Waal, A. Famine Crimes: Politics and the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa
- Heerten, L. The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism
- International Committee of the Red Cross, Nigeria–Biafra Relief Operations Reports
