The American Hero That Set Himself on Fire for Biafra - BIAFRA HEROES DAY

"PEACE IS WHERE THERE IS AN ABSENCE OF FEAR OF ANY KIND" - the inscription found on the back side of the placard Bruce Mayrock carried protesting against the 1967- 1970 Biafra Genocide in front of the United Nations Building Headquarter. 
The CBS Evening News for Thursday May 29, 1969 had the headline: Columbia / Immolation, the reportage came from their studio saying " Near United Nations building, Columbia University student Bruce Mayrock sets self on fire to protest Biafra war and the genocide committed by the Nigeria side. Bruce is currently hospitalized."

"Martyr" Bruce Mayrock died shortly after midnight of May 30th,1970. He died for Biafrans who he never knew or has ever met, the pictures of Biafra genocide he had seen drove him to sacrifice his life to attract humanitarian attention but the United Nations has ignored till date. Members of his family stated that he had worked actively to protest the war in Biafra, writing letters about the war to the President and leading government figures. However according to source close to his family who spoke as thus: " People were being killed and he felt no one was doing anything. That is why he did what he did."

Bruce Mayrock, is from Westbury, New York and was born May 6, 1949,he was a student of Columbia University and twenty years of age when he burnt himself to death at the lawn of the United Nations Building Headquarter in protest against the 1967-1970 Biafra Genocide. He had a placard which front side read "YOU MUST STOP GENOCIDE! PLEASE SAVE NINE MILLION BIAFRANS."

Bruce Mayrock doused himself with a flammable liquid shortly before 3pm and set himself on fire on the lawn outside the UN building. Even when two United Nations guard spotted him on flame and chased him across the lawn with fire extinguishers, but Mayrock eluded the guards racing in front of the North lounge of the building before several hundred horrified delegates and onlookers. Mayrock finally fell to his knees and the guards extinguished the flames, then he was rushed to Belleone Hospital where he was listed in critical condition with burns over most of his body and was pronounced death nine hours after he set himself ablaze. He was buried in Mount Ararat Cemetery, Farmigdale, Suffolk county, New York.

May 30th 2016, Biafrans in Biafraland and all across the world will commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Biafra Genocide. Family Writers salutes the courage of Bruce Mayrock and countless Biafrans shot dead by Nigeria armed forces in Onitsha, Aba, Ugwuocha, while protesting for the release of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of Indigenous People Of Biafra, IPOB, and Director of Radio Biafra and Biafra Television. The prize owed Bruce Mayrock and other Biafra Heroes is the restoration of Biafra, because before their death they had demonstrated "Biafra or Death".

Source: Radio Biafra