http://emeagwali.com My scientific story is more fragmented than the story of the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. It was the story of my journey to the frontier of extreme-scale computational physics. That journey to discover how to solve the toughest problems in mathematical physics was interrupted during the last thirty months of the 1960s. That journey was interrupted when I fled from my all-boys Catholic boarding school—named Saint George’s Grammar School, Obinomba (Nigeria). I fled from Saint George’s Grammar School in late April 1967 and I fled because the Nigerian Civil War was in the air. I fled to become a 12-year-old refugee in the break-away and short-lived nation of Biafra. Two months after I fled from Obinomba (Nigeria) to Agbor (Nigeria) to Onitsha (Biafra), and on the Sixth of July of 1967 that Nigeria-Biafra War began. On the Fourth of October of 1967, my ancestral hometown of Onitsha (Biafra) was heavily bombarded for 24 hours and bombarded from Asaba (Nigeria) and bombarded from across the River Niger. The following day, that artillery bombardment of Onitsha (Biafra) by the Nigerian army was followed by the invasion of my hometown. That night, Onitsha was invaded by a 10-boat armada that carried five thousand [5,000] Nigerian soldiers. Those Nigerian soldiers were led by Murtala Mohammed, who would later become the president of Nigeria. One in fifteen Biafrans died when that Nigerian Civil War ended. The Nigerian Civil War was a nightmare and a bloodbath. The Nigerian Civil War ended after thirty months of non-stop fighting and on January 15, 1970. One million soldiers died at the war fronts of the Nigerian Civil War. And about half a million women and children died in Biafran refugee camps. I survived two years in Biafran refugee camps and survived six months of bloodbath near the Oguta War Front. I survived a war that was described as Africa’s bloodiest war. 14.1.2 One Day We Had to Run! Biafra was located in the southeastern region of Nigeria, West Africa. My family of seven children lived in six refugee camps within Biafra. For two years and three months, onward of April 1967, my family lived in refugee camps in the Biafran cities of Onitsha, Ogidi, Oba, Awka, Awka-Etiti, and Ndoni. During the months of January, February, and March of 1968, Russian Ilyushin bombers and Mig fighters were bombing and strafing our neighborhoods of around 14 Mba Road, Onitsha. On my 14th birthdate of August 23, 1968, my postal address was: Chukwurah Philip Emeagwali Saint Joseph’s Refugee Camp, Awka-Etiti, Biafra, West Africa. On the cover of the TIME magazine that was dated August 23, 1968 is an artist’s portrait of “Colonel Ojukwu,” the leader of Biafra. The cover story of that issue of TIME magazine was titled “Biafra’s Agony.” Philip Emeagwali Lecture 180125-2

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