Trek Through Former East Nigeria Filled With Maddening Obstacles, Newsmen Find - Agents of the breakaway state of Biafra have one main way of reaching the outside world - the 350-mile Enugu-to-Douala run. It is a tortuous, maddening race by helicopter, car, and plane on a route clogged with enormous obstacles, like rutted roads and pettifogging border officials. Isolation is one of the penalties paid by Biafra, the former Eastern Region of Nigeria, for secession. As part of its campaign to weaken the economy of Biafra, the federal government of Nigeria refuses to permit planes to fly in and out of the region. But Biafra wants its representatives rushing about Europe and the rest of Africa selling Biafra's case and soliciting business and recognition. They have to go out by the Enugu-to-Douala run. A London Times correspondent and I have just completed the run, a case study of the headaches and hazards of transportation and communication in some of the most remote, God-forsaken bush in all of Africa...
Trek Through Former East Nigeria Filled With Maddening Obstacles, Newsmen Find - Agents of the breakaway state of Biafra have one main way of reaching the outside world - the 350-mile Enugu-to-Douala run. It is a tortuous, maddening race by helicopter, car, and plane on a route clogged with enormous obstacles, like rutted roads and pettifogging border officials. Isolation is one of the penalties paid by Biafra, the former Eastern Region of Nigeria, for secession. As part of its campaign to weaken the economy of Biafra, the federal government of Nigeria refuses to permit planes to fly in and out of the region. But Biafra wants its representatives rushing about Europe and the rest of Africa selling Biafra's case and soliciting business and recognition. They have to go out by the Enugu-to-Douala run. A London Times correspondent and I have just completed the run, a case study of the headaches and hazards of transportation and communication in some of the most remote, God-forsaken bush in all of Africa...
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