INA RANGOENES Libak spent almost a month in hospital after Anders Behring Breivik found her hiding behind a piano in a cafe on the island of Utoeya last July. He killed 13 people in that building and shot Libak at least four times – in the face, in both arms and in her left breast.
She still has the scars, she told Oslo criminal court yesterday, rising from her seat to show off the most visible. “I just cover them up with make-up – good make-up.”
She felt sure she was going to die that day, Ms Libak said. “I remember all the shots that hit me,” said the 22-year-old during testimony that had the courtroom crying and laughing in equal measure. “I think I was first shot in the arms and I thought, okay, I can survive this, it’s okay if you’re shot in the arms. Then I was shot in the jaw. I thought, okay, this is a lot more serious. Then I was shot in the chest and I thought, okay, this is going to kill me.”
Somehow, she managed to run. “I started to feel that I am stumbling, falling, I don’t have full control over my body and I’m thinking, okay, I’m going to die. This is how it feels to die . . . I couldn’t stop the bleeding. I was shouting ‘I’ve been shot, I’ve been shot, I’m going to die.’ ”
Then she remembered a friend’s voice saying: “We can’t leave Ina here.” He carried her to shelter with others underneath a skate ramp.
She remembered crying that she was going to die, only to be reminded of another member of the AUF, the Norwegian Labour party’s youth wing, which was holding its annual summer camp on Utoeya on July 22nd. “She was from Uganda and she survived being shot in the head, so we were saying to each other: ‘We can survive, we can survive’.”
They heard the shots getting closer. The group held their breath as Breivik approached, coming to within two metres. “But he didn’t look in our direction,” Libak said. “If he had, he would have seen us. It would have been easy to spot us if he had been looking in the other direction.”
Since the attacks, membership of the youth wings of Norway’s major political parties has jumped.
Breivik has claimed he carried out the massacre on Utoeya to wipe out the next generation of a political party he blamed for encouraging a multicultural Norway. But the message from many of the young people who survived his rampage is clear: you have made us stronger, not weaker. – (The Guardian)
A man is in hospital with serious injuries after setting himself on fire outside the Oslo courthouse. Police say the man was seen pouring liquid over himself before igniting it and trying to gain access to the court building.