The 1966 anti-Igbo pogrom was a series of massacres committed against Igbo people and other people of southern Nigerian origin living in northern Nigeria starting in May 1966 and reaching a peak after 29 September 1966. Between 8,000 and 30,000 Igbos and easterners have been estimated to have been killed. A further 1 million Igbos fled the Northern Region into the East. In response to the killings some northerners were massacred in Port Harcourt and other eastern cities. These events led to the secession of the eastern Nigerian region and the declaration of the Republic of Biafra, which ultimately led to the Nigeria-Biafra war. Background The events took place in the context of military coups d'etat and in the prelude to the Nigerian Civil War. The immediate precursor to the massacres was the January 1966 Nigerian coup d'etat led mostly by young Igbo officers. Most of the politicians and senior army officers killed by them were northerners because Northerners were the majority in Nigeria's government, including Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and Ahmadu Bello the Sardauna of Sokoto. The coup was opposed by other senior army officers. An Igbo officer, Aguiyi-Ironsi stopped the coup in Lagos while another Igbo officer, Emeka Ojukwu stopped the coup in the north. Aguiyi-Ironsi then assumed power, forcing the civilian government to cede authority. He established a military government led by himself as supreme commander. In the months following the coup, it was widely noted that four of the five army Majors who executed the coup were Igbo and that the General who took over power was also Igbo. Northerners feared that the Igbo had set out to take control of the country. In a response action Northern officers carried out the July 1966 Nigerian counter-coup in which 240 Southern members of the army were systematically killed, three-quarters of them Igbo, as well as thousands of civilians of southern origin living in the north. In the aftermath, Yakubu Gowon, a northerner, assumed command of the military government. In this background, increased ethnic rivalries led to further massacres. The massacres were widely spread in the north and peaked on 29 May, 29 July, and 29 September 1966. By the time the pogrom ended, virtually all Igbos of the North were dead, hiding among sympathetic Northerners or on their way to the Eastern region. The massacres were led by the Nigerian Army and replicated in various Northern