Norway: Several dead and injured in an act of violence – Panorama

In the Norwegian city of Kongsberg, police said a man killed several people with bows and arrows. It is said to be a lone perpetrator, but how the act should be classified is still unclear.

Several people were killed and injured in an act of violence in Norway. The Norwegian police announced this at a press conference. The act took place in the early evening in the center of the city of Kongsberg, which is about 80 kilometers southwest of Oslo.

Like the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet reported, the alarm went off at 6.13 p.m.; several people had called the police. The residents of Kongsberg were then asked to stay in their homes.

The first investigation revealed that the perpetrator was armed with a bow and arrow and is said to have been in several places in the city, including a grocery store. About three quarters of an hour after the alarm went off, the man was arrested, the police said. “According to our information so far, he carried out the acts alone and without help,” said Police Chief Øyvind Aas. No further perpetrators were sought.

At least four dead

The injured were taken to the hospital. The police chief did not initially say exactly how many victims there were. Norwegian media report at least four deaths. The police have not yet confirmed this.

The background to the fact is still unclear. It is too early to answer the question of whether it could have been an act motivated by terrorism. For tactical reasons, the police did not initially provide any further details about the suspect.

Later in the evening, the investigators want to speak at another press conference. The outgoing Prime Minister Erna Solberg and the Norwegian Minister of Justice will also say something afterwards.

Norway experienced the worst terrorist attack in modern history ten years ago. On July 22, 2011, right-wing terrorist Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb hidden in a white van in the government district of Oslo, killing eight people. He then 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 to a long prison term in August 2012.

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