The cargo plane flew low over southeastern Nigeria, lights off, radio off, pilots navigating by the glow of oil refinery flares along the coast. The runway, somewhere below, is dark. The pilot dropped his wheel and pointed the plane down, seemingly into space.
On the ground, a group of boys suddenly ran out of the bushes to light rows of kerosene lamps to steer the train toward the small runway, just 75 feet wide and 1,200 feet long. On board were 26 tons of antibiotics, flour and salted fish, along with a 34-year-old Irish priest named Dermot Doran.
It was December 1968, and Nigeria was in the midst of a civil war. After nearly a decade of massacres against them, the Igbo people of the southeastern states of the country seceded to form the independent republic of Biafra. The Nigerian army attacked almost immediately, and they quickly sealed off the surrounding area, leaving 14 million residents starving.
Father Doran was one of 1,000 priests and nuns, most from Ireland, who were working in the area when the fighting broke out. Overnight, they transitioned from their roles as educators in peacetime – Father Doran served as a high school principal – to assisting workers during one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 20th century.
Altogether, the Biafran airlift brought 60,000 tons of aid to the region, at the time of the largest mobilization of civilian aid in history. Between 500,000 and two million non-combatants have died from the blockade – but an estimated one million more survived by airlift.
Father Doran is at its core. Sneaking in and out of Biafra, he located the first planes and hired the first pilots. He went to New York City to arrange the first aid shipments. He outlined a logistical plan to move thousands of tons of supplies from Europe and North America to airports in Gabon and Sao Tome, an island south of Nigeria that was then under Portuguese rule.
He took multiple flights from there to Biafra, coordinated the distribution of supplies, caught up with locals and other priests, then left to tell the world what he had learned. Okay. He has ties to the media, befriending CBS’s Harry Reasoner and BBC reporter Frederick Forsyth, whose experience in Biafra helped inspire him to switch to writing political thrillers.
Father Doran testified before the United States Senate, leaving a lasting impression on Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who became a leading supporter of Biafra in Congress.
Frank Carlin, a retired overseas director of Catholic Relief Services, said in a phone interview: “He never did anything halfway. “He’s always programming and planning, then he comes back and tells the story.”
Father Doran died on May 19 in Dublin. He was 88 years old. His niece, Cathy Doran, said the cause was myelodysplastic syndrome, a rare form of blood cancer.
His death, in a hospital, was not widely announced at the time.
Father Doran arrived in Nigeria in 1961, shortly after being ordained a member of the Holy Ghost Fathers, a Roman Catholic congregation also known as Spiritans. The church has long had a strong presence in Nigeria, especially in the southeast, where the Igbo population is predominantly Christian.
He has worked in developing countries before – he spent several years as a teacher in Trinidad – but he loves Nigeria, and especially Igbo culture, with its rich storytelling tradition and history of intense suffering under British rule, seemingly of a piece with the Irish experience.
“I was sent there, and they became my people,” he said in an interview for “Biafra: The Forgotten Mission,” a 2018 documentary directed by Brendan Culleton and Irina Maldea. .
The impact of the blockade was immediate and devastating, especially after Nigeria captured the oil-rich coast of Biafra in early 1968. The inhabitants of Biafra derive most of their protein from dried fish; Without it, children quickly develop kwashiorkor, a protein deficiency that causes their bellies to swell. At the worst of the crisis, in late 1968, about 10,000 people died every day, according to Red Cross estimates.
“It’s something you don’t expect to see in your life,” Father Doran said in the documentary.
Nigeria was supported in the war by Britain, which once ruled the country as a colony, and the two countries have managed to maintain the disinformation. But by the end of 1967, Father Doran had made several trips to Lisbon and New York, and he and others sought to bring journalists into the area to cover the unfolding crisis.
Biafra has become an international calling. Thousands of people joined protest marches in London and Paris. In June 1969, a Columbia University student named Bruce Mayrock self-immolation before the United Nations; He died the next day. In Britain, John Lennon returned his MBE medal to Queen Elizabeth II, in part to protest his country’s role in the blockade.
Many aid organizations have come. Roman Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish groups, including the Catholic Relief Service, have assembled under an umbrella effort called Common Church Aid, to gather supplies to mobilize transfer by air. Father Doran is the organizer of the relief. The pilots nicknamed it the Jesus Christ Airlines.
“It is a great example of ecumenism,” Father Doran told United Press International in 1969. “We may not agree on theology – but we agree on bread.”
The Biafran Air Bridge is considered by many to be a turning point in international humanitarianism. This is the first time that nonprofits and private citizens have led the response to a crisis.
Although several countries have quietly supported the airlift, including the United States and Israel, it did not receive official government approval. In New York, Ireland’s ambassador to the United Nations asked Father Doran to stay away from Nigerian affairs.
And the world watched as the Nigerian air force attacked the airlift, bombing the airport and destroying several planes, killing 25 crew members.
During a debate with Father Dermot on CBS’s “World of Religions,” the Nigerian ambassador to the United Nations, Edwin Ogebe Ogbu, stated that the airlift was supporting the insurgency and by extension war, increasing the death toll.
“If you call innocent babies and babies a few days old, and babies a week old or a month old about to starve — they have no milk, no food — if they are rebellious, I don’t know how,” Father said. Doran said in response.
Michael Dermot Doran was born on September 22, 1934, in Athboy, a town 35 miles northwest of Dublin. His parents, Thomas and Mary Anne (Guinan) Doran, run a pub; years later, one of Dermot’s brothers, Eamonn, founded one of New York City’s most popular Irish bars. He died in 1997.
Along with his niece Cathy Doran, Father Doran is survived by his older sister, Mary Mosely; three other nieces, Annemarie Wylie, Jenn Mosely and Rosalynd Mosely; and five nephews, Hans Doran, Dermot Doran, Eddie Doran, Alan Doran and Paul Doran.
Father Doran entered the Spiritan novitiate in 1952 and graduated in philosophy from University College Dublin in 1955. He spent three years as chancellor at St. Mary’s College in Port of Spain, Trinidad, before returning to Ireland to complete her religious studies. He ordained in 1961.
The Biafran War ended in 1970, when Nigeria recaptured the breakaway region and expelled most of the European missionaries.
Father Doran was later appointed as a communications officer for Catholic Relief Services in New York, from where he was sent to disaster zones around the world. In the early 1970s, while being sent to Bangladesh and India, he became close to Mother Teresa, who invited him to celebrate Mass for her sisters in Calcutta (now Kolkata).
In 1975, he moved to Toronto, where he became the director of Christian Volunteers International, another aid organization. He also served as director of Brottier Refugee Services, a resettlement agency, before retiring to Ireland in 2008.
“Dermot is everywhere,” said Carlin of Catholic Relief Services. “He has more time in the day than anyone I know.”
