Blast rips through football viewing centre in Damaturu

KANO (AFP) – An explosion ripped through a football viewing centre in Damaturu, northern Nigeria, on Tuesday, residents said, as fans gathered to watch the World Cup.

The blast at the Crossfire venue, in the Nayi-Nawa area of the state capital of Yobe, happened at about 8:00 pm (1900 GMT), just as tournament hosts Brazil kicked off against Mexico.

There were no immediate reports of deaths but hospitals were reporting casualties being brought in, medical sources said.

Sanusi Ruf’ai, police commissioner for Yobe state, told AFP: “There was an explosion outside a soccer viewing centre here in Damaturu at around 8:15 pm.

“Our men have deployed to the scene but it’s too early for us to give details.”

One resident said the area had been cordoned off as police and soldiers were sent to the scene.

The blast comes after at least two states banned viewing centres on security grounds following previous attacks blamed on Boko Haram militants, whose five-year insurgency in northern Nigeria has claimed thousands of lives.

Yobe is one of three northeastern states that has been under a state of emergency since last May.

The authorities in Adamawa, in northeast Nigeria, last week closed viewing centres, where large crowds gather to watch matches on the big screen, while the central state of Plateau followed suit days later.

Earlier this month, at least 40 people were killed when a bomb went off after a football match in the town of Mubi in Adamawa. The apparent target was fans trying to leave after the final whistle.

In May, three people were killed in a blast outside a viewing centre showing the European Champions League final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in Jos, the capital of Plateau state.

In April, suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed a packed venue in Potiskum, in northeast Yobe state, shooting dead two people as they watched Champions League quarter-final matches.

KANO (AFP) – An explosion ripped through a football viewing centre in Damaturu, northern Nigeria, on Tuesday, residents said, as fans gathered to watch the World Cup.
The blast at the Crossfire venue, in the Nayi-Nawa area of the state capital of Yobe, happened at about 8:00 pm (1900 GMT), just as tournament hosts Brazil kicked off against Mexico.
There were no immediate reports of deaths but hospitals were reporting casualties being brought in, medical sources said.
Sanusi Ruf’ai, police commissioner for Yobe state, told AFP: “There was an explosion outside a soccer viewing centre here in Damaturu at around 8:15 pm.
“Our men have deployed to the scene but it’s too early for us to give details.”
One resident said the area had been cordoned off as police and soldiers were sent to the scene.
The blast comes after at least two states banned viewing centres on security grounds following previous attacks blamed on Boko Haram militants, whose five-year insurgency in northern Nigeria has claimed thousands of lives.
Yobe is one of three northeastern states that has been under a state of emergency since last May.
The authorities in Adamawa, in northeast Nigeria, last week closed viewing centres, where large crowds gather to watch matches on the big screen, while the central state of Plateau followed suit days later.
Earlier this month, at least 40 people were killed when a bomb went off after a football match in the town of Mubi in Adamawa. The apparent target was fans trying to leave after the final whistle.
In May, three people were killed in a blast outside a viewing centre showing the European Champions League final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in Jos, the capital of Plateau state.
In April, suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed a packed venue in Potiskum, in northeast Yobe state, shooting dead two people as they watched Champions League quarter-final matches.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/06/breaking-news-blast-rips-football-viewing-centre-damaturu/#sthash.3wML46Lc.mdeiMNR1.dpuf

KANO (AFP) – An explosion ripped through a football viewing centre in Damaturu, northern Nigeria, on Tuesday, residents said, as fans gathered to watch the World Cup.
The blast at the Crossfire venue, in the Nayi-Nawa area of the state capital of Yobe, happened at about 8:00 pm (1900 GMT), just as tournament hosts Brazil kicked off against Mexico.
There were no immediate reports of deaths but hospitals were reporting casualties being brought in, medical sources said.
Sanusi Ruf’ai, police commissioner for Yobe state, told AFP: “There was an explosion outside a soccer viewing centre here in Damaturu at around 8:15 pm.
“Our men have deployed to the scene but it’s too early for us to give details.”
One resident said the area had been cordoned off as police and soldiers were sent to the scene.
The blast comes after at least two states banned viewing centres on security grounds following previous attacks blamed on Boko Haram militants, whose five-year insurgency in northern Nigeria has claimed thousands of lives.
Yobe is one of three northeastern states that has been under a state of emergency since last May.
The authorities in Adamawa, in northeast Nigeria, last week closed viewing centres, where large crowds gather to watch matches on the big screen, while the central state of Plateau followed suit days later.
Earlier this month, at least 40 people were killed when a bomb went off after a football match in the town of Mubi in Adamawa. The apparent target was fans trying to leave after the final whistle.
In May, three people were killed in a blast outside a viewing centre showing the European Champions League final between Real Madrid and Atletico Madrid in Jos, the capital of Plateau state.
In April, suspected Boko Haram gunmen stormed a packed venue in Potiskum, in northeast Yobe state, shooting dead two people as they watched Champions League quarter-final matches.
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/06/breaking-news-blast-rips-football-viewing-centre-damaturu/#sthash.3wML46Lc.mdeiMNR1.dpuf

Chibok Girls Need Medical Attention - Reveals FG Secret Negotiator

An Australian negotiator, who was hired by the Nigerian government to broker the release of the over 200 Chibok girls being held captive by Boko Haram, has said that most of the girls are already outside the country.

Stephen Davis is said to have advised three Nigerian presidents on how to negotiate with militant groups and he has been involved in the struggle to free the girls for the past one month.
He said:

‘The vast majority of the Chibok girls are not being held in Nigeria. They are in camps across the Nigerian border in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. I say the “vast majority” as I know a small group was confirmed to me to be in Nigeria last week when we sought to have them released.’
Daily Mail <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2644920/Hostage-schoolgirl-EXCLUSIVE-Mail-Sunday-hears-tape-desperate-pleas-kidnapped-Nigerian-pupils-held-jungle-one-saying-I-never-expected-suffer-like-life.html#ixzz33SShSj5N">reports:</a>
He described how fraught the negotiation process has been.
‘One of that small group of girls is ill and we had hoped we might convince the commander of the group holding her that she should be released so we could give her medical treatment,’ Dr Davis said.
‘There are other girls who are not well and we have come close to having them released but their captors fear a trap in which they will be captured in the handover process.
‘One girl has what I assume is a broken wrist as they demonstrate to me how she holds her hand. I have been told that others are sick and in need of medical attention.’

A military source said: ‘This has been a race against time from the minute they were captured. As soon as the girls left Nigerian soil it was always going to be more difficult.
‘The government made no attempt at a rescue until a month after they were taken. Now the situation gets more serious by the day.
‘Any sort of attempt to get to them would have to be cleared by the governments of the other nations.’

Scathing condemnations of Nigeria’s failure to address the menace of Boko Haram, ever since a proposed peace deal failed last August – leading to the extension of a state of emergency in three northern states – continued worldwide last week.
US Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said Nigeria had been ‘tragically and unacceptably slow’ to begin a search.
Others say the clock really being watched by Nigerian politicians is not the six weeks and counting since the kidnap but the 11 months to the country’s elections.
Opposition politician Nuhu Ribadu has accused the government of ‘total failure’.

Borno: Boko Haram attacks Alagarno, kills 19 persons

Boko Haram sect attacked Alagarno village in Damboa Local Government Area of Borno State in the early hours of Wednesday, killing 19 people.

The sect members equally carted away food items after setting ablaze almost all the houses in the village.

Alagarno village is about 30 kilometers to Chibok town where about 275 female students of Government Secondary School were abducted by the insurgents, and about 117 kilometers from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.

A local, Mallam Umaru Saina, who spoke to DailyPost said a young woman in the village had been missing ever since the attack ended, fueling speculations that the insurgents may have taken her along.

“They destroyed everything we have and took our remaining food. The most painful thing is that they did not spare children. They killed a child, killed women and men”, he said.

Neither the police nor the army has commented on the incident as at the time of filing this report, but sources within the military said that already security operatives have been detailed to the area.