13 DEAD, 19 INJURED IN NIGERIA VIEWING CENTER BLAST

Yobe, Nigeria, 20 Sha’ban 1435/18 June 2014 (MINA) – At least 13 people were killed and 19 injured in a Tuesday bombing at a football viewing center in Damaturu, provincial capital of Nigeria’s northern Yobe State, according to hospital sources.

“I counted 13 corpses in the morgue this morning,” a medic at the Sani Abacha Specialists Hospital in Damaturu, asking not to be named, told Anadolu Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting  on Wednesday morning.

A nurse working the night shift told AA that the 13 bodies had been brought by police and military patrol vehicles last night and deposited at the mortuary.

She added that 19 other people were being treated for injuries of varying degrees of seriousness.

The nurse said that some of the injured, “whose condition are not very critical,” could be discharged later today.

The blast occurred at a football viewing center in the Damaturu metropolis during a Brazil-Mexico World Cup match.

Jide Adeoye, an eyewitness, told AA Tuesday that over 50 football fans had been at the viewing center at the time of the blast.

Musa Aliyu, another local resident, said the explosion had occurred at about 9pm local time as spectators watched the Brazil-Mexico match.

On June 12, authorities in Nigeria’s central Plateau State banned the use of football viewing centers for the duration of the one-month-long World Cup.

The measure came barely 24 hours after a similar decision by authorities in the northern Adamawa State.

Endemic power failures often force Nigerian football fans to resort to watching must-see football matches at local viewing centers.

But viewing centers, especially those in the country’s restive north, have been increasingly targeted by militants.

The northern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe have been the hardest hit by Nigeria’s five-year-old armed group insurgency. (T/P09/E01)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)