Norwegian youths return to Utoya island
Print Edition
MORE than 1,000 young activists yesterday gathered on the Norwegian island of Utoya for the official opening of their political party’s summer camp, the first meeting there since a gunman killed 69 people in a rampage four years ago.
“It’s good to be home again at Utoya,” the president of the center-left Labour Party youth organization, Mani Hussaini, told a crowd sitting on a hill.
Some of the youths had crossed in the same ferry that took Anders Behring-Breivik, disguised as a policeman, to the island in July 2011 after he earlier had set off a car bomb outside the prime minister’s office in the center of Oslo. The bomb killed eight people.
The killings were the worst atrocity in Norway since World War II, traumatizing a nation that prides itself on its reputation for peace and safety.
“All the things we had to go through and all the tough days. But this day will also be a part of Utoya’s history,” said the Syrian-born Hussaini.
Small signs dot the island with names of victims engraved on steel plates fixed to trees.
Messages such as “Step by step we take our island back” and “We take good care of the memories” are written on notes and hang from a tree.
“To have the camp here again ... reminds me a lot of walking here together with the friends who are not here anymore,” said Runar Kjellstad Nygaard, 23.
Four years ago, Nygaard went home to Oslo just before the shooting.
“It was the plan to stay, but I dropped it because they warned of bad weather,” he said.
Bulletholes could still be seen in a nearby pump house, situated between rocks where small hearts made of stone and steel have been attached. A steel circle, symbolizing eternity, engraved with the names and ages of almost all the victims, has been erected as a memorial.
In 2012, Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder of 77 people.
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