Norway has opened a new memorial honoring the 77 victims of the country's deadliest terror attack in peacetime. The unveiling took place in Oslo on Sunday, July 19th, 2026, just days before the 15th anniversary of the attack that occurred on July 22nd, 2011.
On that day, neo-Nazi Anders Breivik detonated a car bomb in Oslo, killing eight people, and then shot dead another 69 individuals—mostly teenagers—at a youth camp on Utoeya island. Hundreds more were injured in what remains Norway's worst atrocity in recent history.
Survivors and relatives gathered in Oslo for the unveiling of a large contemporary artwork named "Upholding." The memorial features a 12-metre (39ft) high stone mosaic depicting a small wading bird native to Utoeya island, supported by a huge blue steel frame. Straw and sticks are reflected in the water as part of the design. The memorial is located in Oslo's renovated government district, near the site of the 2011 bomb blast.
Artist Matias Faldbakken, who said he had seen the bird on Utoeya island, described the work as two-fold: to remember the victims and to engage the public in an act of democratic resilience against the far-right ideologies that inspired the attack.
Merete Stamneshagen, head of a support group for victims and survivors, told AFP, "July 22, 2011 was a brutal attack not only on individuals, but also on our democracy."
In 2016, Anders Breivik partially won a human rights case against Norway, but this decision was overturned the following year.
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