First camp on Utoya since Breivik attack

Four years after Anders Behring Breivik's bloodbath, a thousand Labour Party youths are to gather Friday on Utoya island in Norway for the first summer camp to be held there since the carnage.

The right-wing extremist killed 69 people, most of them teenagers, on July 22, 2011 when he opened fire on a gathering of the Labour Party's youth wing (AUF) on the tiny heart-shaped island in the middle of a lake.

Determined to reclaim possession of the site, the youngsters -- including a handful of survivors -- will hold their annual camp from Friday to Sunday.

"Utoya is a meeting place for young activists, a political workshop, a place for culture, sport, friendship, and not least, love," AUF leader Mani Hussaini told reporters earlier this week during a press visit of the island.

"Utoya is also the site of the darkest day in Norway's peacetime history," he added. "Utoya will always be the place where we will remember those we lost, but reclaiming Utoya for the summer camp is about not letting the dark history overshadow the light," he said.

Breivik's shooting spree lasted an hour and 13 minutes, as he methodically hunted down the 600 up-and-coming leaders of Labour, Norway's dominant political party, which he blamed for the rise of multiculturalism.

 

Heavy security, soft toys
 

Trapped on the island of just 30 acres (12 hectares), the campers had nowhere to go, some of them throwing themselves into the surrounding chilly waters.

Just before that, Breivik had killed eight people with a bomb that exploded near the government headquarters in Oslo, some 40 kilometres (25 miles) away.

Carrying heavy backpacks and tents, some even clutching soft toys, the young activists began arriving on Utoya on Thursday under heavy security.

Norwegian authorities were harshly criticised for their lack of preparedness and their slow response to the attacks at the time.

Now, two police boats and armed police have been dispatched to guard the scene.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, who was Norwegian prime minister at the time of the attacks and who has attended the summer camps regularly since the 1970s, made a discreet visit to Utoya on Thursday.

"It's good to be here, but also sad of course," he told news agency NTB.

"These two (feelings) will mark Utoya forever."

Another former head of government, Labour matriarch Gro Harlem Brundtland, who was one of Breivik's stated targets on July 22, 2011, was also expected to visit the island on Friday.

 

Bullet holes left intact
 

The leafy, green island has received a facelift ahead of the reopening. New buildings have been built next to the old ones, which have been carefully renovated.

The cafeteria, where 13 youngsters lost their lives, has been maintained for now, still bearing the scars of the bullet holes as a reminder of the past.

A little further away, a memorial entitled "The Clearing" has been installed in the woods: a giant steel ring suspended from the evergreens bears the names of 60 of the 69 victims.

In a sign that the wounds are far from healed, nine families did not want their loved ones' names to appear on the ring.

Some in Norway feel it was too early, even disrespectful, to hold a summer camp at the scene of the tragedy.

But 22-year-old survivor Ole Martin Juul Slyngstadli was not one of them.

"There are of course a lot of emotions linked to the scene but I focus on the positive ones," he told AFP.

"For me, it's important to reclaim the island," he said.

While Breivik said his goal was to wipe out the next generation of Labour politicians, his attacks appear to have had the opposite effect.

AUF's membership has soared by almost 50 percent since the massacre to reach just under 14,000.

Breivik is serving a 21-year prison sentence, which can be extended indefinitely as long as he is considered a danger to society. -AFP

(File photo: Getty Images)