Operation Sunrise (Nyasaland) Macleod advised Armitage to go on leave pending his retirement, and he retired in April 1961 without returning to Nyasaland. During the 16 months of the State of Emergency, up to 4,500 police and soldiers, the majority not from Nyasaland, patrolled the protectorate. In all, 1,339 people were detailed without trial and 2,160 were convicted. . Operation Sunrise (Nyasaland) Operation Sunrise was the name given to a police and military action conducted by the authorities in the Central African protectorate of Nyasaland (now known as Malawi) which started on the 3rd March 1959, initially to detain and intern 350 individuals
Nyasaland Emergency 1959 Armitage was only made aware of the planned action against the SRANC at a meeting of Prime Ministers and governors in Salisbury on 20 February, at which the governor of Northern Rhodesia, Sir Arthur Benson was also put under pressure to act against African anti-Federal parties and declare a State of Emergency in Northern Rhodesia. Benson resisted this pressure, but did place restrictions on 47 Zambian African National Congress activists. Whitehead also wished to take control of security in southern Nyasaland as the price for loaning 900 Southern Rhodesian police to Nyasaland following Armitage's request for police reinforcements: it was