According to Holstbrekken, the soldiers are a bit into the terrain along the Finnish border and have made themselves known with the help of communication equipment.
The alarm about the missing soldiers came just after 5 pm on Thursday. Initially, ten soldiers were reported missing since they had not returned from an exercise earlier during Thursday.
Five of them were found at around 8 pm the same evening – three came to the agreed meeting place and two were found by the rescue helicopter that was deployed in the search. They are doing well, according to the police.
The military states that it is not the first time soldiers "disappear" for a while, but that it has been a long time since the military was forced to call in the police, which was done after twelve hours of searching.
The exercise the soldiers participated in was about keeping hidden and making their way to a specific meeting place.
There is always a risk that someone navigates wrong and does not arrive at the meeting place at the agreed time. That was exactly what happened here, says Lars Strøm, communications director for the Norwegian army according to NRK.
