Teen's texts offer window into Norway terror

Marianne Bremnes received the kind of message that a mother dreads.

“Mummy, tell the police to come quick. People are dying here,” her 16-year-old daughter Julie wrote in a text message from Norway’s Utoya island on Friday.

Like many of the young people attending a Labor Party camp on the island, Julie Bremnes was carrying a cell phone, enabling her to reach her mom while Anders Berhing Breivik was on a 90-minute shooting rampage, killing dozens of people. Her exchange with her mother, released on Wednesday, gives a glimpse into the long, terrifying wait for help.

“The police know,” Marianne Bremnes, 46, texted her daughter. “They’ve had many calls. Give a sign of life every five minutes.”

Julie, was hiding under a rock with three friends while Breivik roamed the island, shooting people as they cowered, ran, or tried to swim for safety.

“We are in fear of our lives,” Julie texted.

Mother: “I understand. Stay hidden.”

As the wait for rescue dragged on, the text conversation seemed a preparation for the worst.

Julie: “I love you even if I still misbehave from time to time."

Mother: “I know that my darling. We love you very much.”

The exchange went on for about 90 minutes.

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Julie and her three friends were rescued, physically unharmed.

Many others were not as fortunate.

Breivik shot to death 68 people on the island, and injured many more. Breivik also detonated a bomb at a Norwegian government building in Oslo earlier in the day, killing 8 others before travelling to the island, about 28 miles away.

Adrian Pracon, 21, said members at the camp were gathering for a meeting, to discuss the news of the bombing earlier in the day, which was also carried out by Breivik before he came to the island.

Pracon was shot in the shoulder as he lay among the bodies, hoping to be mistaken for one of the dead.

“I knew it was over,” he told NBC’s Martin Fletcher from his hospital bed. “I knew I was going to die now.”

He said that there were long spells of silence while Breivik was searching for people in hiding, broken occasionally by bursts of gunfire and screams.

“(Breivik) also screamed out that he would kill us all," Pracon said. "That this was the day we would die out,” said Pracon.

On Wednesaday, the Daily Mail reported that the Breivik had consumed a cocktail of drugs prior to his attack in order to be "strong and efficient," according to the defense lawyer. Breivik had plotted to inject poison into the bullets during the attack, though it was unclear whether he had actually done so . He wore a police uniform to draw young campers to him, and appeared in total control during the island rampage, police official Odd Reidar Humlegaard said.

Some of the last-minute cell phone exchanges among loved ones would prove to be their last.

Gunnar Linaker, 23, was speaking by cell phone to his father Roald Linaker in Bardu in northern Norway when the mayhem began.

"He said to me: 'Dad, dad, someone is shooting,' and then he hung up," Roald Linaker said.

Gunnar Linaker was shot and later died in the hospital, having never regained consciousness.

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As Norway names dead, religious leaders and counselors offer comfort to a nation (The Christian Science Monitor)

Oslo, Norway – As Norwegian police begin naming the victims from last Friday’s terrorist attacks, adding a human face to the country’s loss, caregivers and aid organizations say they stand ready to help the public sort out its raw emotions.

Survivors and mourners alike are still coming to grips with the heavy death toll from the shooting spree at the lake island of Utoya and the bombing in downtown Oslo which killed at least 76. Many are particularly disturbed over the mass murder on Utoya, where police claim Anders Behring Breivik shot 68 people – many of them in their late teens and early 20s – dead at a summer camp.

“Everyone seems beaten,” says Oslo resident Sigvald Sveinbjornsson, calling the deaths “extremely meaningless.”

“It’s impossible to comprehend,” he adds.

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Investigators have portrayed Mr. Breivik’s actions as chilling, saying he hunted down the campers, many of whom hid in the woods or dove into the lake to escape. The attacks have triggered an outpouring of sympathy both at home and from abroad, with world leaders and Norway’s institutions offering their support.

Police have provided grief counseling and lawyers to the victims to help them navigate the impending legal process. The University of Oslo has opened telephone lines and prayer rooms to those seeking solace, and made the university’s priest available to students.

The Oslo Cathedral has also become a magnet for memorials and visitors. A gathering of flowers and flags that began on Friday outside of the church has only grown, engulfing much of the adjacent square.

“It has been overwhelming,” senior pastor Elisabeth Thornsen says of the response. She says the church now has to restrict the number of visitors inside the cathedral at one time after a small fire broke Monday night from candles placed throughout the building.

To meet the demand, Ms. Thornsen says the cathedral has extended its hours and will offer services every night this week. She says the state church has sought to give the public a space to grieve but also impart a sense of hope.

“I think it’s important to give a sense of peace; to let people feel what they feel and try to give room for that,” she says. “What I feel is very important is to say what the church always is saying; that there is hope. We believe in hope.”

Astrid Arnslett, spokeswoman with the Norwegian Red Cross, says its volunteers have been working with the authorities since the afternoon explosion in central Oslo. She says the organization has aided with search and rescue operations amid the rubble and on Utoya as well as provided psychological care to victims from both attacks.

Mrs. Arnslett was with many of Utoya’s victims over the weekend, sorting out practical details like finding new pairs of shoes and offering a shoulder to cry on. She says the mood was mixed as victims, overjoyed to be alive and reunited with friends, increasingly became filled with a sense of survivor’s guilt after it became clear dozens had died.

She says as more and more names are released, the number of those grieving will only increase, since victims on Utoya hailed from across the sparsely populated country. As a result, the Red Cross is keeping its centers open nationwide and is preparing to stay in touch with victims as they leave Oslo for home or head back to school.

“These young people have been through things that we’ll never understand,” she says. “Some of these kids will need people to talk to for a very long time.”

Experts agreed the healing process would be long and difficult for those who lived through the attack, especially the young. Rather than trying to shield them from what happened, officials said it is best to keep them informed and open to discussions.

“The more they understand the better they cope with the situation,â€

He doubts the attacks would ultimately scare young people away from politics, instead predicting they could fuel their interest in activism. In any case, he said the attacks would be seared into the public’s conscience, which in the end may serve to benefit Norway’s future generations.

“It is important to remember so that we can work to prevent such a thing in the future,” he says.

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