Norway's Utoya island reopens 4 years after massacre

More than 1,000 Norwegian youth gathered Friday for the first Labor Party youth summer camp on the island of Utoya where far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik killed dozens of teenagers place four years ago.

"In two years we have been at Gulsrud, our cabin. It's good to be home again on Utoya," Mani Hussaini, leader of the Norwegian Labor Party's youth organization AUF, was quoted by NTB news agency as saying in his opening speech.

After Breivik's attacks on July 22, 2011, the AUF cancelled its summer camp in 2012 and moved its camp spot to Gulsrud near the Tyri Fjord west of Oslo in 2013 and 2014.

"July 22 will forever be a part of Utoya history, all we had to go through, all those heavy days. But this day will also be part of Utoya history, the day when the AUF summer camp again gathers on Utoya," Hussaini told campers.

According to the AUF, more than 1,000 people enrolled for activities of the Labor Party youth camp from Friday to Sunday on the island of Utoya, about 40 km northwest of Oslo, marking a record number for the event.

A new memorial featuring all the victims' names has been built on Utoya and buildings on the island have also been repaired by AUF members and other volunteers.

Jorgen Frydnes, head of the new Utoya project, told local daily Aftenposten earlier the week 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 where eight people were killed.

Later in 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. Endit