5 Dead in Norway Bow and Arrow Attack, Danish Man Charged

Mass-killings are rare in Norway and the worst peacetime massacre happened in 2011 in which 77 people died.

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A Danish man has been arrested for killing five people and injuring two others using a bow and arrows in Kongsberg, Norway, on Wednesday 13 October, Reuters reported.

According to a statement by the police, the Danish citizen is a resident of Kongsberg and was transported to Drammen after his arrest, a city in southeastern Norway.

The statement also said that one of the two injured in the attack was a police officer who was present at the crime scene, but was there while being off duty.

A women who witnessed the attack told reporters that she saw "people running for their lives" and that "one of them was a woman holding a child by the hand", reported The Guardian.

The motive of the attack remains unknown at the moment. The acting prime minister, Erna Solberg called the attack "horrific" and the prime minister-designate, Jonas Gahr Støre called it “a cruel and brutal act”, added The Guardian.

Norway's 2021 parliamentary election had been held in mid-September in which the incumbent Conservative Party lost to The Norwegian Labour Party.

The police have not ruled out terrorism yet but cautioned that since the investigation hasn't begun, it was too early to speculate and jump to conclusions.

Mass-killings or terrorist attacks are quite uncommon in Norway.

The most heinous attack that has taken place in the country during peacetime was by the far-right domestic terrorist Anders Breivik who was responsible for a bomb blast in Oslo that killed eight in July 2011, according to the Associated Press.

After the bomb attack, he went to Utoya Island and murdered 69 participants of the Labour Party's youth wing in a mass shooting.

(With inputs from Reuters, The Guardian, Associated Press)