We have all seen football fans camping in large public screening areas in parks and bars from Tokyo to Tegucigalpa to watch this year's World Cup. However, things are somewhat different for Africans in Nigeria and Kenya, who has recently been rocked with several explosions in public screening venues in their countries.
Bloomberg said that on June 17, a blast at a viewing center in Damaturu in northeastern Nigeria had resulted to the deaths of 14 people, who were among with the many who were watching the action between Brazil and Mexico. On June 15, some of the 60 people who were killed in various attacks in Kenyan coastal towns were watching a game in public screening centers.
These attacks are not the firsts that happened in the African countries. Four years ago, around 78 people were left dead in several attacks on bars located in Ugandan capital Kampala.
34-year-old real-estate agent Josiah Langat, who has been frequenting bars in Nairobi, told Bloomberg in an interview, "We don't want to risk going out until we are confident things are better. World Cup viewers can be a target for terrorists because we had incidents in 2010 in Uganda."
A radio station that is sympathetic to the al-Qaeda-linked movement Al-Shabaab had aired a broadcast wherein a man who claimed to be a spokesman for the group took responsibility for the attacks in Kenya. This purportedly admission was a contrast to the claims by the country's president, who had blamed the attacks to blamed political rivals. Islamist militia operating in Nigeria, the feared Boko Haram, is named as the suspect of the killings in Damaratu.
Political analyst Francois Conradie at NKC Independent Economists, said by phone from Paarl, South Africa, "Ideologically for Islamist militants, the World Cup and beer is everything they stand against, so this is a way of making their mark. We'll probably see more of these kind of attacks."
Authorities have already sent soldiers to shut down venues who are looking to publicly screen World Cup matches, Bloomberg said. The governments have already issued warning to fans to stay home, which could be a blow to Nigeria's national team, known as the Super Eagles, who along with Black Stars of Ghana, Cameroon's Indomitable Lions and the Elephants of Ivory Coast, who are all competing for a chance to snag the World Cup championship or at least make a mark in the tournament.
