World Cup Attack in Nigeria Kills 13, Including Small Children

The Nigerian government has advised people to avoid gathering in public to watch the World Cup, concerned about potential attacks.

At least 13 people were killed and 20 injured after a bomb tore through a venue in the northeast Nigerian town of Damaturu where fans had gathered to watch a World Cup match. Photo Courtesy: Red Cross

(ABUJA, Nigeria) - At least 13 people were killed and 20 injured after a bomb tore through a venue in the northeast Nigerian town of Damaturu where fans had gathered to watch a World Cup match.

Some people at the scene told Reuters an attacker dropped a device in front of the venue on Tuesday night in the town of Damaturu and ran off, while others said it was the work of a suicide bomber.

No one claimed responsibility for the blast, but Damaturu and the surrounding Yobe state are at the heart of a five-year-old insurgency by Islamist group Boko Haram.

The group was blamed for a an attack on another venue screening matches in the north-eastern state of Adamawa that killed at least 14 people and wounded 12..

A Reuters reporter at Damaturu's General Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital counted 13 people dead - including small children - and at least 20 wounded.

The Nigerian government has advised people to avoid gathering in public to watch the World Cup, concerned about potential attacks.

Many fans in football-mad Africa rely on informal venues - often open-sided structures with televisions set up in shops and side streets - to watch live coverage of the sport.

Boko Haram - whose name roughly translates as "Western education is sinful" - has declared war on all signs of what it sees as corrupting Western influence.

The group has killed thousands in its push to carve out an Islamic state in religiously-mixed Nigeria

Source: Reuters