Norwegian police and forensic specialists have now finished identifying all the victims of last Friday’s bombing of government headquarters in Oslo and a subsequent massacre at the Labour Party youth organization’s summer camp on Utøya, an island in the Tyri Fjord.
The final death toll was set at 77 on Friday, with 69 killed on the island and eight killed in the bombing. A list of the names of victims can be found on the state police’s website. (external link, in Norwegian).
Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has been reading aloud the names of every single victim and where they’re from on the national nightly news (Dagsrevyen), after police have released the identities at 6pm.
Most of the victims were rising stars in what would have been the next generation of Labour Party leaders. Instead they were gunned down by a right-wing extremist Norwegian who largely held the Labour Party responsible for Norway’s emergence as a multi-cultural nation. The bomber and gunman, who was the son of a retired veteran diplomat in the Foreign Ministry who now lives in France, grew up on the affluent west side of Oslo and calls himself a Christian.
He’s charged with killing 77 persons and causing massive destruction in the heart of the Norwegian capital, and is being held in isolation at Norway’s highest security prison. His own defense attorney has said his client, who has shown no remorse and says he needed to wage a war against Muslims who’d been allowed into Norway and western Europe, has his a “unique version of reality.”
Scores more were injured in the bombing and massacre. Doctors at Ullevål Hospital in Oslo said on Friday that no further loss of life was expected and many had been released. Around 15 persons remained in hospital Friday morning.
Views and News from Norway/Nina Berglund
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