Devastating: An explosion has killed at least 21
people in a shopping mall in the Nigerian capital Abuja just an hour
before the national football team started its match against Argentina in
the World Cup
An explosion in a Nigerian shopping
mall has killed at least 21 people as the nation prepared to watch its
football team play Argentina in the World Cup.Witnesses said the blast - just an hour before tonight's match - left body parts were scattered around the Emab Plaza in an upmarket district of Abuja.
Billows of black smoke could be seen from a mile away as more than a dozen people were wounded. No one has yet claimed responsibility but the attack bears the hallmarks of Boko Haram extremists.
Wounded: At least 17 more people were injured in the blast, including this man being helped to safety
'I heard the explosion and (felt) the building shaking,' said Shuaibu Baba, who had a narrow escape.
He said he rushed downstairs to find that the driver who had dropped him a few minutes earlier was dead. 'I asked the driver to come with me, and he said no, he would wait for me in the car,' he added.
Police Superintendent Frank Mba said 17 people were wounded and 21 bodies were recovered.
He also said one suspect has been arrested and investigations have already started.
The blast came as Nigerians were preparing to watch their country's Super Eagles come up against Argentina at the World Cup in Brazil.
Many shops at the mall have TV screens, but it was unclear if the explosion was timed to coincide with the match.
One witness said he thought the bomb was dropped at the entrance to the mall by a motorcyclist, but Mba said it was too early to say.
Crowded: The shopping centre was reportedly teeming with people at the time of the explosion this afternoon
Burnt-out: Smoke rises from vehicles after the bomb exploded in an upmarket district of Abuja
It is the latest in a series of violent attacks blamed on the Islamic extremists Boko Haram, who have a stronghold in the northeast of the country.
Boko Haram attracted international condemnation for the April mass abductions of more than 200 schoolgirls, and is blamed for this week's abductions of another 91 people — 31 boys and 60 girls and women with toddlers as young as three.
Abuja is in the center of Nigeria and the militants have spread their attacks to the capital. Two separate explosions in Abuja in April killed more than 120 people and wounded about 200 at a busy bus station. Both were claimed by Boko Haram, which threatened further attacks.
A bomb at a medical college in northern Kano killed at least eight people on Monday, and last week, at least 14 died in a bomb blast at a World Cup viewing site in Damaturu, a state capital in the northeast.
In May, twin car bombs in the central city of Jos left more than 130 people dead; and a car bomb at a bus station killed 24 people in the Christian quarter of Kano, a Muslim city.
Nigeria's military and government claim to be winning the war in the five-year-old insurgency against the militants.
But the tempo and deadliness of attacks has increased this year, killing more than 2,000 people so far compared to an estimated 3,600 killed over the past four years.
Abuja residents were urged 'to remain calm and go about their normal business' by government spokesman Mike Omeri, who issued a statement saying that security agencies are 'handling the situation.'
He said that 'every step is being taken by the government to check the activities of insurgents in the country and advised Nigerians to remain vigilant and conscious of movement of unidentified people.'
Boko Haram wants to install an Islamic state in Nigeria, a West African nation whose 170million people are almost equally divided between Muslims who are dominant in the north and Christians in the south.
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