A terrified mother lived through the Utoya island massacre via text messages from her teenage daughter as the gunman hunted down his victims.
As she fled the assassin, 16-year-old Julie Bremnes sent texts pleading: ‘Mummy, tell the police that they must hurry. People are dying here!’
Her mother Marianne Bremnes said yesterday: ‘I didn’t realise how serious it was at first. Then she sent a message saying, “I love you even though I’m sometimes angry with you”. I realised then that they were in big danger.’
Mrs Bremnes switched on the television at her home in Harstad, in the far north of Norway, and was able to warn her daughter – one of the youngest on the island – that the gunman was disguised as a policeman.
She said: ‘Julie called me first at 5.10pm and said, “Mum, there is a mad man here shooting”. She told me to call the police and I asked her to send me a message every five minutes so I knew she was alive.’
Julie's mother told her Anders Behring Breivik was dressed as a policeman
At times the mother seemed blinded by the fog of panic as she asked questions such as whether the girl would like her grandfather to pick her up, and: ‘Should we try to get the flight home tomorrow?’
Cowering from bullets, the teenager replied: ‘I have no time to think about that now.’
Mrs Bremnes, whose son Jorgen also survived, said Julie was with two boys and a girl who ran down to the shore when they heard shots. They waded out to a rock where they could shelter.
She said of Julie: ‘She saw dead bodies floating in the water and saw dead bodies on the shore, she also saw somebody getting shot. She’s OK now, she’s quite a tough girl.’
Here we print the dramatic text message exchanges between the two:
They all have similar terrifying tales: A man dressed in a police uniform opened fire on the youths gathered together at the political camp.
Julie Bremnes, 16, texted her mother, Marianne, during the attack. The conversation has been published by the BBC. Julie begs her mother to send the police, writing, “People are dying.” During the exchange, which lasted about an hour and a half, Marianne tries to comfort her daughter, who is sending messages that she’s still alive.
“I love you even if I still misbehave from time to time,” Julie texted.
Marianne replied: “I know that my darling. We love you too very much.”
Kristoffer Nyborg, 24, told ABC News.that the shooting “wasn’t like the movies where you see blood. There was no blood. They just fell, lifeless.” He said other children caught on the island jumped in the water to try to swim away. The kids who were too afraid to swim were shot at close range, he said.
Another survivor, Adrian Pracon, told the BBC that he played dead after being shot in the shoulder. “He was calm and collected,” Nyborg said of the gunman. “He was not in a hurry to press the trigger quickly. If people ran, well, he knew he would catch them.
No comments:
Post a Comment