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| Wed, 11th Jan 2023 18:38:00 |
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Lützerath eviction: German police drag climate protesters from coal village |
Police in riot gear have started to drag climate activists away from an abandoned village in western Germany they have occupied for months.
Protesters barricaded themselves in to prevent Lützerath from being swallowed up by the nearby Garzweiler open coal mine.
Some activists threw stones and pyrotechnics at police officers as they began to clear the camp.
Protesters climbed into treehouses to make the eviction more difficult.
The village is owned by energy firm RWE, and the last resident moved out over a year ago.
There were violent scuffles as police wearing riot gear moved into the village early on Wednesday to evict the protesters. More than 1,000 police from across Germany took part in the operation.
They dragged some activists, many wearing scarves to mask their faces, away across the muddy ground. The situation was then described as predominantly peaceful as police knocked on doors in the village and asked people to leave.
Some of the protesters have formed human chains, others have taken to treehouses or the rooftops of the village.
Lützerath is literally on the verge of being swallowed up by the vast open coal mine on its doorstep.
RWE operates the mine and plans to extend the works. A huge mechanical digger stands metres from the treeline at the edge of the village.
Although all the residents have left, several hundred climate protesters are determined to stop RWE getting at the lignite that lies underneath Lützerath.
Some have been here for more than a year, squatting in the abandoned brick buildings. And it will probably take police weeks to remove all the barricades and tree houses.
"The coal under here is not needed for anything just for RWE to make more profit," one activist told the BBC.
Two protesters, Anna and Kim, had chained their hands inside a barrel filled with concrete.
"I feel hopeless and sad because most probably this village will be gone," said Anna. "At the same it feels powerful to see how many people are here and supporting this."
Days before the police moved in, the activists were busy reinforcing barricades and preparing piles of bricks. Some were practising their rope-climbing skills.
A series of treehouses, perilously high in the tall trees, are linked by rope so that the activists can move around above the heads of the police.
Activist Dina Hamid rejected the assertion of authorities, that Germany needed the lignite to meet its energy requirements, now that it could no longer rely on supplies from Russia.
"The climate crisis is now, and we know that coal should have been stopped years ago."
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