Norwegian youth reclaim Utoya island four years after right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik's massacre

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Four years after Anders Behring Breivik shot dead 69 people on Utoya island in Norway, about 1,000 Labour Party youths gathered for the first summer camp since the massacre, determined to reclaim the site.

The right-wing extremist killed mainly teenagers in his rampage on July 22, 2011, hunting down participants at a camp of the Labour Party's youth wing AUF on the tiny heart-shaped island in the middle of a lake.

The atmosphere was relaxed as AUF head Mani Hussaini told the delegates in his opening speech: "It's good to be back home."

In his only direct reference to the carnage of four years ago, Mr Hussaini said: "July 22 will forever be part of Utoya's history ... but this day is also going to go down in Utoya's history."

NATO secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg, who was prime minister at the time of the attack, was attending the camp and tweeted: "Great to wake up at Utoya, and to be together with so many engaged young people."

Many of the teenagers arrived on Utoya on Thursday, with many pitching their tents near the cafeteria, a poignant symbol of the massacre as Breivik killed 13 youths there. Bullet holes can still be seen in the building.

"Utoya is also the site of the darkest day in Norway's peacetime history. Utoya will always be the place where we will remember those we lost, but reclaiming Utoya for the summer camp is about not letting the dark history overshadow the light," Mr Hussaini told reporters.

Before the seminars and speeches began on Friday, the teenagers held high-spirited games of football or volleyball, with armed police guards keeping a careful watch.

Two police boats are guarding the waters around Utoya.

Just before the shootings, Breivik had killed eight people with a bomb that exploded near the government headquarters in Oslo, some 40 kilometres away.

Map: Oslo and Utoya island, Norway

His shooting spree lasted an hour and 13 minutes, as he methodically stalked and killed 69 of the 600 up-and-coming leaders of AUF, Norway's dominant political party, which he blamed for the rise of multiculturalism.

Trapped on the island of just 30 acres, the campers had nowhere to go, some of them throwing themselves into the surrounding chilly waters.

A memorial entitled 'The Clearing' has been installed in the woods, a giant steel ring suspended from the evergreens bears the names of 60 of the 69 victims.

AUF's membership soared by almost 50 per cent after the massacre, among the new members children of migrant families who represent everything Breivik hated.

"I felt it was important, that I wanted to make a contribution," said 22-year-old Joel Gianni, whose parents are from Eritrea, and who says he joined the party after the attack.

Breivik is in solitary confinement serving a 21-year prison sentence, which can be extended indefinitely as long as he is considered a danger to society.

AFP

Topics: law-crime-and-justice, race-relations, community-and-society, norway