LUTZERATH, GERMANY (AFP) – Climate activist Greta Thunberg joined a large-scale protest in Germany yesterday to stop the demolition of a village to make way for an open-cast coal mine extension.
In an operation launched earlier this week, hundreds of police have been working to remove activists, who have already occupied the hamlet of Lutzerath in western Germany.
Between 20 and 40 climate militants were still holed up in the contested village on Friday evening, a spokeswoman for the protest movement told AFP.
Authorities said they were entering the final stages of evacuating the activists. In just a few days, a large part of the protesters’ camp has been cleared by police and its occupants evacuated.
Demolition works were progressing slowly on the buildings that had been emptied while surrounding trees were felled, an AFP journalist saw on Friday.
Lutzerath, deserted for some time by its original inhabitants, is set to disappear to make way for the extension of the adjacent open-cast coal mine, one of the largest in Europe, operated by energy firm RWE.
