{"version":"1.0","type":"rich","provider_name":"Acast","provider_url":"https://acast.com","height":250,"width":700,"html":"","title":"Philip Emeagwali Remembers The Biafran Holocaust - The Nigerian Civil War","thumbnail_width":200,"thumbnail_height":200,"thumbnail_url":"https://open-images.acast.com/shows/60ad7158c601400019adee62/60ad716cd7a9d30019eeeaf9.jpg?height=200","description":"A Day in the Life of a Child Soldier. I was a child soldier on the Biafran side of the Nigeria Biafra War, a war that raged during the last 30 months of the 1960s, a war that was described as Africa’s bloodiest war, and a war in which one in fifteen Biafrans died. My journey to my invention was a twenty-year long journey that began at a war front in July 1969 and ended, twenty years later, at the frontier of knowledge on the Fourth of July 1989. \nThe turning point in my journey \nto the frontier \nof the most massively parallel supercomputer \noccurred twenty years before \nmy experimental discovery \nof the massively parallel supercomputer that, in turn, \noccurred on the Fourth of July 1989 \nand occurred \nin Los Alamos, New Mexico, \nUnited States. \nIn July 1969, I was conscripted \nas a 14-year-old soldier \nand sent to the Oguta War Front, \nIgbo Land, Biafra, West Africa. \nI was conscripted at gun point \ninto a war that was on par \nwith the American Civil War \nor the Spanish Civil War.\nI was the youngest soldier \nat the Oguta War Front, Biafra. \nThat war \nturned my ancestral hometown \nof Onitsha (Biafra) \ninto Africa’s bloodiest battlefield. \nI arrived at the Oguta War Front \nand arrived a few days after \n500 Biafran soldiers \nfell on the ground. \nFive hundred soldiers fell \nas if they were dry leaves. \nI was conscripted to replace \none of the 500 men that died. \nAt the Oguta War Front of Biafra, \nthey were more guns than pens. \nThat 30-month-long war ended on \nJuly 15, 1970 \nand ended with the defeat of Biafra.\n\n\n\n\nIn mid-1968, my postal address \nwas the refugee camp at\nSaint Joseph’s Secondary School, \nAwka-Etiti, Biafra. \nMy family of nine \nlived in a tiny classroom\nof Saint Joseph’s Secondary School.\nIn Biafra, West Africa, all schools \nwere closed from June 1967\nthrough early 1970.\nSchools in Biafra were closed because they were either located at the war front\nor closed so that \nrefugees like those of us \nthat fled from Asaba and Onitsha\ncould live in its classrooms.\nIn Biafra, all school classrooms\nwere reconfigured as living spaces\nfor refugees and soldiers. \nThe refugees at Saint Joseph’s \nhad no chairs, no tables, no beds. \nRefugees slept on a mat \nthat was spread across a concrete floor\nand many slept on bare floors.\nMy father, Nnaemeka James Emeagwali,\nwho was appointed \nour refugee camp nurse, said that\nmost refugee children, \nincluding my youngest brother, \nhad kwashiorkor.\nKwashiorkor is a nutritional disorder \nthat is caused by the lack of protein.\nKwashiorkor was prevalent \nin famine stricken Biafra. \nAt Saint Joseph’s Refugee Camp,\nthere were days I only ate \npalm kernels and fried cassava flakes called garri.\nBy mid-1970, and six months \nafter the war has ended,\nI was still living in refugee quarters \nalong Port Harcourt Road, Fegge, Onitsha, East Central State (Nigeria).\nEach morning, I took an empty bucket\nto fetch water \nfrom the eastern bank \nof the River Niger.\nPort Harcourt Road was a short walk \nfrom the banks of the River Niger.\nFast forward four years \nfrom that refugee quarters \nin Fegge (Onitsha),\nI was in Monmouth, Oregon, \nin the Pacific Northwest region \nof the United States.\n\n\n\n2.7.5 Philip Emeagwali Religion\n\nI was asked:\n“What were the religious influences\non your contributions to science?”","author_name":"Philip Emeagwali"}