The Norwegian police have captured a 32-year-old ethnic Norwegian man suspected to be involved with both the bomb attack at the Oslo government headquarters on Friday afternoon and the shooting massacre at the Utoya Island shortly afterwards.
At about 3:20 p.m. local time, explosions transformed the government building and its surrounding area in central Oslo into a warlike zone. Shortly afterwards, at about 5 p.m. an Norwegian man, disguised as a police officer, suddenly opened fire on a crowd of youth attending a camping on Utoya Island off the shores of Oslo. The youth belonged to the Norwegian Workers´ Youth League (AUF), the youth wing of the ruling Labor Party.
Norwegian television NRK interviewed witnesses who described the panic that broke out among the campers who try to flee for their lives. Some drowned when they jumped into the sea in an attempt to swim to the mainland. Bodies were lying on the shore and the smell of gun powder filled the atmosphere, witnesses told NRK.
“We are in deep sorrow,” said Eskil Pedersen, president of AUF.
“The police have every reason to believe that there is a connection between the explosions and the incident on Utoya,” Oslo police said in a statement released Friday night.
The country is in a state of shock and sorrow after the two attacks. Police chief Oystein Maeland urged the people to stay away from the city center, remain indoors, restrict the use of mobile phones, and follow instruction from the authorities so that rescue and security operations can be carried with the least interference.
Increased security was imposed at several government institutions, airports and border checks were reinstated.
The Oslo bomb attack killed at least six people and seriously injured at least nine others. At least 80 people are believed dead in the Utoya Island attack.
Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said in a message from his office that the situation was very serious and all available resources were engaged in the rescue efforts.
