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Norway's Utoya island to reopen for youth camp 4 years after massacre

Xinhua, August 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

Norway's Utoya island will reopen this week to host its first Labor Party youth camp since far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed dozens of teenagers in the same place four years ago, local media reported on Wednesday.

More than 1,000 people have enrolled for activities of the Labor Party youth camp from Friday to Sunday on Utoya island, about 40 km northwest of Oslo, and it is probably the highest number ever, according to Norway's NTB news agency.

"I am very proud that there are so many participants for this year's summer camp. Probably it is our highest number so far," said Mani Hussaini, leader of the Norwegian Labor Party's youth organization AUF.

He said Utoya will always be a place characterized by the terrorist attack in 2011, but in order "not to let the darkness win," they have rebuilt the island piece by piece and reopen summer camp on it again.

Jorgen Frydnes, head of the new Utoya project, told local daily Aftenposten that when rebuilding the island, he had to look for a new balance that safeguards both the need to remember and the need for a new life.

"We have listened, learned and corrected us along the way. Now we believe we have taken a major step in this process and created a balance that maintains many needs, both for present and for future generations," he said.

On July 22, 2011, Breivik set off a car bomb just outside the high-rise building in the government administration complex in Oslo and eight people were killed in the attack. Later the day, he killed 69 others, most of them teenagers, in a shooting rampage on Utoya island, where members of the then ruling Labor Party's youth wing had gathered for their annual summer camp.

In 2012, Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison at the Oslo District Court.

Norway's penal code does not have the death penalty or life in prison, and the maximum prison term for Breivik's charges is 21 years. However, the term can be repeatedly extended by five years as long as he is considered a threat to society. Enditem