Norway warns far-right threat has grown 15 years after Utøya

Fifteen years after Utøya, Norway warns that the far-right threat has grown and is reaching a generation too young to remember 22 July.

The attacks killed 77 people: eight in a bombing at Oslo's government quarter and 69 at the Labour youth movement's summer camp on Utøya. More than 200 were injured in Oslo, while many others were wounded on the island.

Commemorations took place in Oslo and on Utøya. Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Norwegian society was not immune to terror and described far-right extremism as a greater security threat today.

The anniversary reaches Sweden too. Sveriges Radio spoke to Chato Rasoal in Huddinge, who remembers his cousin Bano, killed on Utøya.

Former prime minister Jens Stoltenberg opened his handwritten notes from the day for the first time in 15 years. They recorded how officials initially believed the death toll was far lower than it proved to be.

The Norwegian Police Security Service says the distance from 2011 makes it harder for younger people to grasp the reality of the violence. An AUF member told Sveriges Radio that the attack still affects young people's willingness to speak and take part in politics.

Fifteen years on, remembrance carries a present warning: democratic participation still needs defending from the ideology the attacker used violence to impose.

Sources: SVT News and Sveriges Radio, 22 July 2026. Image: an archival memorial outside Oslo Cathedral on 25 July 2011.

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