Louth Green Party

Although their leader refused press comment, sources said that the hoisting of the flags was part of the preparation for this year's protest march by the Movement aimed at putting a stop to the alleged torture and killing of its members by security agents in the country.

At a briefing last week, Regional Administrator of the Movement, Chief Ikechukwu Ekwe, had told journalists that over 2,000 of MASSOB's registered members were killed by security agents between May 22, 2000 and April 22 this year in various cities across the country.

He also disclosed that a greater number sustained various degrees of injuries resulting from gunshot wounds, adding that more than 1,000 of the members were currently languishing in prisons.

Despite the alleged killings and tortures, Ekwe said the organisation was not deterred in the agitation to achieve a sovereign state of Biafra and freedom for its people.

He said that their members would walk from Okwe in Imo State to Enugu and Onitsha in a non-violent manner to protest the continued killing and unlawful detention of members of the organisation in the country.

Addressing a mock session in which the organisation released a comprehensive list of its members killed in the cause of the struggle, the regional administrator alleged that security personnel carried out the act "in the continued genocide against our members."

The compendium, which contained city by city, the names of members of the group allegedly killed within the period had Okigwe in Imo State as 1,044, Aba and Owerri 498, Enugu and Abakaliki 398 while Onitsha and Awka have 300 fatalities.

Ekwe, who gave breakdown on the location where the killings were done, said they were openly carried out on the members in rallies at Awgu, Okigwe and Aba, adding that the security operatives, who carried out the act, allegedly on the orders of the past administration.

Thousands of members of the group, who gathered in Enugu including men and women, were dressed in black, an indication that they were in mournful mood and chanted dirge of various kinds in the process.

He said: "The state-organised killing of Ndigbo started in northern part of Nigeria in 1953, during the agitation for Nigeria's independence. The massacre continued in January and July of 1966, in most parts of the North and indeed western Nigeria. That also resulted in the Nigeria/Biafra war of 1967-1970.

"Since the end of the said civil war, there has been no end to the genocide against the Igbo ethnic group, arising from religious crisis, moreover in northern Nigeria. As lives and property of Ndigbo could not be guaranteed in Nigeria, the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) was floated in 1999, to continue in a non-violent manner, the pursuit of a separate independent state, for the people of Eastern Nigeria."

He continued: "Irrespective of the non-violent approach of MASSOB, the Nigerian State continued its genocide against our people. From May 22, 2000 to April 22, 2008 more than 2,000 registered members of MASSOB in various cities in Nigeria were killed by Nigerian security personnel.

"It is believed that unrecorded casualties may be higher than that. Presently, more than one thousand MASSOB members are languishing in various prisons in Nigeria."

Ekwe noted that the organisation has continued to support families of their fallen members, adding that, they had not received any form of sympathy from government over the unfortunate incidents.

Insisting that the group would not retreat, despite threats on the lives of its members, he called on the international community and "men of goodwill" to dissuade the leadership of the country from its continued genocide against the group as well as release her members from detention.

"We believe that it is our inalienable right to agitate for our freedom through non-violent means. We also believe that no amount of hardship and danger will deny us this right," he said.