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.
It has turned what should have been a national celebration into a national tragedy as Nigeria secured its place in the World Cup's knockout stages for the first time since 1998.
No one has yet claimed responsibility, but the attack bears hallmarks of Boko Haram extremism.
Wounded: At least 17 more people were injured in the blast, including this man being helped to safety''
Rescue: Police Superintendent Frank Mba said 17 people were wounded and 21 bodies were recovered''
Brutal: Rescue workers carry the remains of a person in a body bag after the bomb in the crowded mall''
'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.
Tragedy: People could do little but watch as a plume of thick black smoke rose into the air after the blast''
Helped: People crowd around an injured woman outside the shopping mall following the blast'
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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