Ten years after the Breivik attacks, people are attacked in a small Norwegian town. According to the police, several of them are dead. The alleged perpetrator can be caught.
Oslo – Several people were injured and killed in an act of violence in Kongsberg in southern Norway. The Norwegian police announced on Wednesday evening.
The alleged individual perpetrator was caught. The act took place around 6.15 p.m. in the center of the city of Kongsberg, which is around 80 kilometers southwest of the capital Oslo. The perpetrator was armed with a bow and arrow – whether he was also carrying other weapons remained open until night. One assumes a lone perpetrator. There is no search for further perpetrators. The situation is under control.
Several injured and dead
The police could unfortunately confirm that there were several injuries and deaths, said the responsible police chief Øyvind Aas. The injured were taken to the hospital. He did not initially name the exact number of victims. According to media reports, at least four people are said to have been killed.
The attacks occurred in several places in the city, according to the police. The center was cordoned off over a large area. At 6.13 p.m., several people reported to the police that an armed man was moving through the city and shooting people with a bow and arrow, Aas said. The act took place in several places in the center of Kongsberg. Several media reported that a supermarket was the location of the action.
Many questions still open
The background to the act initially remained unclear. It is too early to say whether there could be a terrorist background. Aas emphasized that he could not answer many questions yet.
A resident of Kongsberg told NTB news agency that she heard the alarm go off in a supermarket. She didn’t think much about it. But then she also heard police cars and ambulances. The police searched garages and backyards in the city center with flashlights in the evening.
“This is a tragedy for all concerned. Words fail me, ”said Kongsberg’s mayor, Kari Anne Sand, of the Norwegian newspaper“ Verdens Gang ”.
Solberg: “The reports are terrible”
Norway’s outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg expressed her condolences to those affected by the violence in the small town of Kongsberg. “Our thoughts go first of all to those affected and their relatives,” said Solberg late on Wednesday evening at a press conference in Oslo that was called at short notice.
“The reports coming from Kongsberg tonight are horrific,” said Solberg. “The perpetrator committed terrible acts against several people. It’s a very dramatic situation that hits the community in Kongsberg hard. ”It is important to underline that nothing is known about the incident.
Because of the incident, the police were temporarily armed, the police department announced late in the evening. It is a readiness measure – there are currently no indications of a change in the threat situation in the country. The Norwegian secret service PST was also informed of the incident.
Incident brings back bad memories
Ten years ago Norway suffered the worst terrorist attack in its modern history. On July 22, 2011, right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik set off a bomb hidden in a white van in the government district of Oslo, killing eight people.
Then he drove to the island of Utøya, about 30 kilometers away, where he pretended to be a police officer and opened fire on the participants in the annual summer camp of the youth organization of the Social Democratic Labor Party.
69 people, mostly teenagers and young adults, were killed on Utøya. Breivik named right-wing extremist and Islamophobic motives for his actions. He was sentenced in August 2012 to the then maximum sentence of 21 years with a minimum imprisonment of ten years.
The incident occurred in the Scandinavian non-EU country Norway on the eve of a change of government: On Thursday, the social democrat Jonas Gahr Støre will present his cabinet in Oslo at noon. dpa
