Sunday, July 24, 2011

Attacks in Norway: A whole country is crying for his children

Was executed in cold blood and a jubilant young offenders - after the double attack with more than 90 deaths have stunned the Norwegians. Within hours, her country has changed. The brunt of the grief in Sundvollen - the place off the island, where the offender struck. A hotel made of brown wood is the focus of an entire people.

Less than two kilometers away is the island Utøya, which happened on Friday, the worst disaster in Norway since the Second World War. 85 people were shot, executed effectively, presumably by a radical right-minded assassin, the 32-year-old Anders Behring as hundreds of relatives gathered at this hotel off the island, parents huddle in the chairs outside, young people are silently weeping in the arms.


A priest comes out of the house, John Osterhus, the pastor of the local church. "We have a room set up here," he says. Around the Clock is a priest there to receive the members. "These people are waiting to identify their beloved children," he says, his voice begins to tremble. "We can only listen to them and stand together with them." Inge Eirik Johansen, a 18-year-old boy, slim, dark hair, stands in the crowd.

He was there when the terror came to Utøya. He can hardly speak, "I was in the middle of the island when I heard a shot. At first I thought it was fireworks," he says. "When we realized that it is serious, we have run. As quickly as we could, we ran to the pier." There they met the boatman, he gave Eirik and his seven friends in safety.

It was the only time that would take the ferry. It was a way back no more, was shot on the island wild. Ida Knudsen, 16, describes her escape from the island of reporters. She is tall, blond, repeatedly shaking her mouth, her eyes are desperate. You've seen how the killer came to the island.

"He was tall, had dark clothes on." They also believed that he was a policeman. He had been 50 feet away from her when he fired the first shots. Ida and about ten of her friends ran into the woods, hiding behind trees and over again. "But the shots were coming closer," says Ida. Some of her friends had fled into the water, they could not even swim.

Residents rescued her by boat. "Many of my friends are dead," says Ida. Then there is a police chaplain and the distraught girl brings back to the hotel. Other Eyewitnesses of execution scenes, including that the attackers deliberately fired at youths who stood dead. And as he cheered after his fatal shooting.

All of Norway is under the impression of terrible events - Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has come to Sundvollen and turns to the waiting relatives, they hugged. Then King Harald also appeared with his wife Sonja and Crown Prince Haakon on. The king is wearing a hunting coat, the Crown Prince a brown wool sweater and black pants.

You want to demonstrate proximity, be part of the grieving people. Prime Minister Stoltenberg speaks again of the horror that has haunted this small country of Norway. "And the only signal that we can send out into the world, is the closeness in our sorrow," he says. How does a people in whose country otherwise die within a year no more than 30 people through murder, when are in a single afternoon killed almost a hundred of them? Katie Lossius comes with its half-year-old son from a small supermarket and almost apologizing that she is gone shopping a few cans of baked beans.

Something as mundane in a moment that is so extraordinary in the history of their country. The young mother with the half-length blond hair, has heard the helicopters, the boats that went around suddenly. "I was just back from work, when everything happened," she says. Now their community is in shock.

"The people have everything yet can not sink," she says. No question here of why for this act. "There is no explanation except that this man must be crazy," she said and rolled the stroller back and forth nervously. Many want to this sad place only as fast as possible home. And many consider too stunned at how to build two hundreds of journalists at the stone wall outside the hotel.

Others want to stay, to remain. Harald Olsen, a forty-something blonde in recent years has helped organize the youth camp of the UP. Now he stands there and waits for news of his friends, through friends of his sons. "We do not know whether they are dead or just injured," he says. The terror struck the center of political power in Oslo.

Employees of government should be among the dead. But the terror also struck to the heart of the Norwegian society. At the summer meeting of 600 politically active young people came together, the island is an idyllic location. It also describes Prime Minister Stoltenberg: the island is the "paradise of his youth" and now it is "the hell" is.

The day after the fjord is still and black. This jump is still diving into the water, sniffer dogs run barking on the shore, on the road on a slope the hearse lined with white crosses on the roof together. On Friday, the day of the attack it was cold in the Scandinavian fjords, the day after it is tropical and humid.

On the way from Oslo is the killer drove past red wooden houses, waterfalls and rushing mountain streams - in the middle of this impressive

No comments:

Post a Comment