At least 21 people were killed in a bomb explosion at a soccer viewing center in northeastern Nigeria on Tuesday night, believed to be a retaliation threat by Boko Haram, a terrorist organization responsible for the abduction of scores of schoolgirls in April, for watching the World Cup, a Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital hospital source told the BBC.
Several men and young boys were watching the Brazil-Mexico World Cup match when a suicide bomber detonated explosives, witnesses in Damaturu, in Yobe state, said.
Concealed in an abandoned motorized rickshaw, the bomb detonanted outside a shop, where people had gathered to watch the game.
At least 27 people are reported to have been seriously injured, a source from Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital in Damaturu revealed Wednesday on the condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
"All the victims are young men and boys. They sustained burns, ruptured tissues, shattered bones," he said.
Threats by Boko Haram, a terrorist organization based in northeastern Nigeria, have caused public screenings of the World Cup to be banned in some parts of Nigeria. Following years of attacks, three states, including Yobe, are under a government-imposed state of emergency.
"There have also been warnings of potential attacks at venues showing the World Cup in East Africa - Somali Islamist group al-Shabab killed 76 people watching the 2010 World Cup final at two restaurants in the Ugandan capital, Kampala," according to BBC.
"Both Boko Haram and al-Shabab say watching football is un-Islamic - a view rejected by mainstream Muslims."
No group has claimed responsibility for the latest blast.
"Our men have deployed to the scene, but it's too early for us to give details," said Yobe state police Commissioner Sanusi Ruf'ai.
Boko Haram, the militant Islamists who abducted scores of schoolgirls in April, had distributed leaflets warning the viewing centers to stay away from watching the World Cup, a Yobe police official in Damaturu told CNN.
"Letters have been distributed to viewing centers in Adamawa state warning people not to gather to watch the World Cup games," Maina Ularamu, a local official in Madagali, in Adamawa state, said. "We suspect these letters to be from Boko Haram. People are very afraid and are not leaving their homes."
The Nigerian government had placed Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states under a state of emergency last year in order to combat the growing threat from the militants.
