Norway Survivors Return to Utoya

Under heavy guard, 1,000 expected to grieve 69 lost
By Polly Davis Doig,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 20, 2011 9:14 AM CDT
Norway Survivors Return to Utoya
Survivors and their relatives of the July 22 attack visit the island of Utoya in Norway, Saturday, Aug. 20, 2011. Up to 1,000 survivors and relatives were expected on Utoya island.   (AP Photo/Scanpix Norway, Gorm Kallestad)

Less than a week after Anders Behring Breivik reconstructed the scene of his massacre on Utoya island for police, survivors and victims' families came to grieve those lost in the flurry of bullets. Up to 1,000 people were expected this weekend, accompanied by some 400 psychologists, police, and public officials, including Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, who tells the AP he would "take part in their mourning. I will be there as a friend, as a prime minister."

"Very often they ask for details, and this is where they can learn more about the details," a psychologist tells the BBC. Norway's General Director of Health Bjoern Inge Larsen says many survivors "have a lot of anxiety. They were life-threatened on this island four weeks ago in a very traumatizing manner, so what we are prepared for is to help them to overcome that anxiety." Norway marks the end of the one-month grieving period tomorrow with a national memorial service. (More Anders Behring Breivik stories.)

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