At least 13 people including young children were killed when a bomb tore through a venue in northeast Nigeria where fans had gathered to watch a World Cup soccer match, witnesses said yesterday.

A Reuters witness near the scene heard a loud boom, and some residents said they also heard a second explosion.

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

Victims killed by the blast include small children

Police Commissioner Marcus Danladi confirmed the explosion, adding that police were still trying to gather information.

No one has 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 area has been devastated by attacks from the militant Islamist group which in April abducted more than 200 girls from a school in neighbouring Borno state. Boko Haram have also been blamed for an attack on another venue screening soccer matches in the northeastern state of Adamawa that killed at least 14 people and wounded 12.

Many fans in soccer-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.

Such assaults on the often-ramshackle television viewing centres have raised fears that militant groups will targetfootball supporters gathering to cheer on the global soccer contests.

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 recently advised people to avoid gathering in public to watch the World Cup matches as it is concerned about potential violent attacks.

Many fans in soccer-mad Africa rely on informal venues 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 Islamist militant group has killed thousands since 2009 in its push to carve out an Islamic state in Nigeria’s restive north.