Matilda Osakwe

Biafran Survivor


Matilda Osakwe, 56

Nurse in training and helping children in sick-pay.

Name: -- Matilda Osakwe
Occupation during the war: -- Nurse / Present: Nurse
Age when war started: 22 / Present: 56
Marital Status: -- Single, but married during the war in 1968 / Present: (still married)
Number of Children: Delivered her first child during the war in 1969 / Present: 4
Place of Residence: Enugu / Present: (same place)
Reason for Relocation: War

War Movements:
Matilda Osakwe experiences were those of a young woman who was training to become a nurse. She was at Iyi-Enu hospital in Ogidi from 1966-1967, which was also known as Olu Ministry of Health. The Biafran Ministry of Health were located in other sites where she worked in the sick bay with war victims, most of whom were children suffering from kwashiorkor (malnutrition). In 1968 - 1969, she went to Mbano hospital in Imo State and also worked in the sick bay. Then she moved to Eziama-Osa where she stayed until the war ended in January of 1970. The section of the sick bay that Matilda worked had a lot of children who suffered from such diseases as Kwashiorkor. Most of these children had either been abandoned or had lost their parents during the war. The age of the children in the sick bay ranged from 1 to 15 years old. According to Matilda, the Red Cross and World Health Organization were very helpful during the war. Some of the sick refugees were sent to Sao Thomé.

Matilda: I beg, put on the air receiver (a slip of tongue - she meant to say, air conditioner)

Conversation Venue:
Venue of Interview: I spoke to her in her son's house in Ajao Estate, Lagos.

Her Story:
Matilda Osakwe was a nurse during Biafran war. At twenty-years of age, she had decided that she wanted to dedicate her life to helping the sick. But she was not aware that the country would undergo a civil war that needed all the energy she could muster. Matilda worked in the sick bay with Kwashiorkor patients and abandoned or missing children. While a student in trainin, Matilda was engaged to her husband whom she married in 1968. Though newlywed, she wanted to complete her education before she had her family. One thing that made Matilda very mad about the war was that it disrupted her education, and life. At the time of the war she resided in Enugu with her husband but relocated to another place because of the war. Her husband lost his house and property when the Niger bridge was bombed down. In 1969, she gave birth to her first child.

Mrs. Osakwe is fifty-six years old and is still a practicing nursing. She is also still married to her husband and lives in Enugu. Mrs. Osakwe has four children and a grandson. When I was in Nigeria, she came to see his son's wife who was pregnant with her first child.

Nurses were one of the most important people during the war. They helped to heal the sick; they fed missing children, and they saved lives. As a young nursing student, Mrs. Osakwe was worked with hundreds of children suffering from kwashiorkor in the sick-bay. She assisted in looking after children who were lost, abandoned, or hungry.

Matilda's story reminds us that amidst the chaos and tragedy there were also moment of happiness.
She narrated her tale, which included close observation and first hand contacts with war victims. Matilda Osakwe's main point is that the war was a terrible thing because it created chaos and disorder. She believed that Biafran medical efforts could not have succeeded as it did without the help of the Red Cross, and the World Health Organization (WHO). She said, it is a war that disrupted lives and held one from advancing.

Audio Files

Osakwe's Story 1 | Osakwe's Story 2

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