The four-year-old daughter of an immigrant woman from Sudan died Thursday night after three days of intensive care at Norway’s national hospital in Oslo. She was among the three children of the woman who’s believed to have drowned herself while taking her young daughters with her into icy waters off Tromsø.
The woman and her three daughters were all found lifeless in the water on Monday evening, part of a family tragedy that set off a massive search and rescue and effort. The woman and her oldest daughter were pronouced dead at the local university hospital in Tromsø, while the two youngest daughters were flown to Rikshospitalet in Oslo for special intensive treatment.
Only the youngest daughter, aged around 18 months, remained on life support systems Friday. Her condition was described as “critical.”
Police in Tromsø have since charged the dead mother with murder and attempted murder in a highly unusual case aimed at enabling care and compensation for her survivors. The woman’s motives remain a mystery, with fellow Sudanese friends in Tromsø telling newspaper Aftenposten that she always appeared “calm and positive” after arriving in Norway in 2017. Her husband had been granted asylum in Norway in 2015, with his wife and children later allowed to join him.
Police continue to investigate but have stressed that the husband is not under any suspicion. Autopsies have not shown any signs of violence against the children or their mother, who had taken her first proficiency exam in the Norwegian language earlier in the day on Monday. Its results were unknown, but one of her friends insisted the woman hadn’t appeared to be especially nervous about the exam and had shown no signs of loneliness or depression.
“I don’t know what happened, it’s incomprehensible,” Ehsan Bakheet told Aftenposten, “and very sad.”
newsinenglish.no staff
