opencast lignite mining

The police want to continue the evacuation of Lützerath on Sunday "It will continue throughout the day," said a spokesman in the morning

"A few tree structures are still being checked " According to the police, only a few activists are still in the village area, which has been cordoned off since Wednesday

The number of people is estimated to be in the single digits, the spokesman said Large parts of the site were floodlit in the early morning

Excavators drove onto the site to demolish more buildings The village of Lützerath, a district of Erkelenz west of Cologne, has been cordoned off by the police for days and is surrounded by a double fence

there has been clearing since Wednesday The few buildings in the settlement will be demolished to enable the energy company rwe to excavate the lignite underneath

On the other hand, many thousands of people demonstrated in the neighboring district of Keyenberg on Saturday The organizers estimated the number at 35,000, the police spoke of 15,000 participants

Around 5,000 of them did not take part in the meeting, said a police spokesman They would have immediately moved in the direction of the quarry edge and Lützerath

They were therefore regarded as "disturbers" Clashes broke out between these demonstrators and the police on the fringes of the demonstration

According to police, people were injured on both sides The exact number of injured and the circumstances that led to the injuries were not initially known

It was not initially announced whether there were arrests According to the police, around 1000 mostly masked "disturbers" had tried to get to the closed village area and the demolition edge of the opencast mine

Several emergency vehicles that formed a barrier in front of the construction fence were climbed over and damaged Police used water cannons, batons and pepper spray to repel them after people were threatened with coercion "countless times"

The police warned that it was life-threatening to walk to the edge of the mine because the ground had softened due to the rain and there was a risk of landslides "I am absolutely horrified at how normal meeting participants allow themselves to be carried away into entering the absolute danger area," said Aachen police chief Dirk Weinspach

According to the police, individual demonstrators also attacked police vehicles and threw pyrotechnics in the direction of the officers A spokesman said tires were punctured and wing mirrors kicked off

A spokesman on the rally stage had previously explicitly called on the demo participants to ignore police instructions He thinks it's legitimate if the participants try to get into the cordoned-off Lützerath, he said: "Don't let the police stop you

we are powerful We are on the side of justice We will not let this repressive system stop us

We stop this mine Do everything you think is right

" >> Read here: "The right argument in the wrong place" - Lützerath puts the Greens in need of explanation The energy company rwe announced in the evening that they were "appalled by the aggression and violence , which emanated from parts of the activists” This has nothing to do with the otherwise peaceful demonstration

"Anyone who throws stones and firecrackers at police officers completely uninhibitedly and tries to break through barriers is not criticizing energy policy, but attacking the social foundation of our constitutional state " The main speaker at the rally was the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg

"Lützerath is still there, and as long as the coal is still in the ground, this fight is not over," said the 20-year-old to the cheers of the audience It is incomprehensible to her that coal will still be mined and burned in 2023, although it is well known that the climate change caused by this is costing human lives in many parts of the world

"Germany, as one of the world's biggest polluters, has an enormous responsibility," Thunberg warned More: