Humanitarian Action: The Joint Church Aid and Health Care Intervention in the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-1970.

International humanitarian aid played an important role in the Nigeria-Biafra War, 1967-70. Relief aid was organized under two major umbrella bodies -- the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Joint Church Aid (JCA). The JCA received support from Catholic and Protestant churches while the ICRC, an established humanitarian agency, relied on donations from many governments as well as from the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). This paper focuses on the formation of the JCA as a humanitarian organization and examines its efforts to provide health care for the war victims in Biafra. Though the JCA has not received adequate scholarly attention, its humanitarian aid in Biafra was the first of its kind in the developing world and involved the largest civilian airlift in history. As this paper argues, the JCA 's health care intervention in Biafra was restricted to minimal care because of a lack of essential medications, equipment, food, and epidemiological expertise. Despite these challenges, however, the JCA managed to provide basic health care to over ten million persons in Biafra during the war. Further, the organization succeeded in providing aid without creating long-term dependency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]