Incidents pitted anti-coal protesters and police on Saturday at a large rally of several thousand people in western Germany, with police complaining that protective barriers were smashed near a huge coal mine open air.
1. “The police barriers have been broken down.
To the people in front of Lützerath: Get out of this area immediately!”, launched the police who also reported the intrusion of demonstrators on the site of the mine.
Christian Mang / Reuters
2. A little earlier, AFP journalists had witnessed scuffles between groups of demonstrators and the police targeted by fire from pyrotechnic devices.
Media reported stone throwing.
Christian Mang / Reuters
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3. An AFP reporter saw a protester with a head injury as ambulance sirens sounded at the scene of the protest, which was difficult to contain as it dispersed in small groups across the muddy fields surrounding the mine.
Wolfgang Rattay / Reuters
4. According to the organizers, the demonstration, in the presence of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, gathered some 35,000 people.
Thilo Schmuelgen / Reuters
5. On television images, a line of police in riot gear, helmets and equipped with shields, protected the edges of the pit from the mine several tens of meters deep which the demonstrators were approaching.
Wolfgang Rattay / Reuters
6. “Some people entered the mine.
Get out of the danger zone immediately!
“, tweeted the police again.
Christian Mang / Reuters
7. The security forces also protected access to the hamlet of Lützerath, closed by gates and occupied by several dozen activists being evacuated by the security forces for several days.
Wolfgang Rattay / Reuters
8. It was in support of the anti-coal activists who occupy this abandoned hamlet that the demonstration was organized.
Thilo Schmuelgen / Reuters
9. The Lützerath site, located in the Rhine basin, between Düsseldorf and Cologne, must disappear to allow the extension of a huge open-pit lignite mine, one of the largest in Europe, operated by the German energy company RWE.
Wolfgang Rattay / Reuters