A country in mourning finds strength through unity

EVERY hour they came in their hundreds, some of them in tears, to leave flowers, Norwegian flags or to light candles in memory of the dead.

In the heart of Oslo, the tributes piled up in front of the city’s cathedral. Groups of friends, couples, whole families — they all came to pay their respects.

Nearby the soldiers stood watch: an unusual site in the Norwegian capital. But the nearby government sector, where Friday’s bomb went off, was still sealed off as investigators continued their work.

Tone Bjorkli, accompanied by her friend Mirja, added a small wreath of white flowers to the growing collection. “It’s quite scary to see all that on the telly,” said the 31-year-old artist. “But on the other hand, its comforting to come here and see everybody so moved.”

But then as they pointed out, it was not as if they could think of anything else but Friday’s bombing that killed seven people in the government district; and the killing spree that followed on Utoya island, not far from the capital.

Police said at least 85 people attending a summer camp run by the youth wing of the ruling Labour Party lost their lives there. And they have warned that the death toll could rise.

“It’s the only thing that people are talking about,” said Tone. “We need to get it all out.”

Among those paying their tribute to the dead here were members of the royal family, who came to light candles. Earlier yesterday, along with the Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and members of the government, they spoke to survivors of the massacre.

Beside Tone and Mirja in the crowd, stood Farid Omar, a 23-year-old Burundian who has lived in Norway for seven years. He had come, he said, to show “that it’s not just the Norwegian people who are affected. I too, as an immigrant, I can say that it’s shameful what has happened”.

It had brought back memories of the violence in Burundi, he added. But he would have never expected something like this to happen in his adopted home, Norway.

As a Muslim, Farid confessed to being relieved that the main suspect in the killings was a Norwegian, “because if not it would have destroyed the multiculturalism that exists here. “Look, there are foreigners everywhere, there are 24,000 Somalis in central Oslo alone,” he added.

Nor was Farid the only immigrant among the thousands filing through the cathedral. “There are even veiled Muslims who have come here to the cathedral,” Pastor Anne Anita Lilleboe, the university chaplain, said. She had volunteered to help organise the day’s mourning.

Inside the cathedral, couples leaned against each other as dozens of people filed past the chapel, lit up by hundreds of candles. The pastor estimated that some 400 people were paying their respects here every hour.

The cathedral has become a focus of the wave of grief and compassion that has swept so many people here. And all across the city, the flags were at half-mast. Outside in the courtyard, 64-year- old Einar Andresen, on the verge of tears, hugged his friend Nicolas. “It’s the worst crime that I have ever know in Norway,” he said.