It is unclear how many demonstrators were injured because they were not reported. The police used water cannons, batons and pepper spray

After clashes between demonstrators and police officers in front of the embattled village of Lützerath, both sides have accused each other of violence. Meanwhile, the demolition of Lützerath progressed rapidly, most of the buildings were no longer standing by Sunday. According to the police, only a few activists were still on the site. However, two climate activists were still holding out in an underground tunnel. When the clearing and the demolition are finished, the energy company RWE wants to excavate the coal lying under Lützerath.

Knocked out on muddy ground
On the other hand, thousands of people demonstrated in the neighboring town of Keyenberg on Saturday. The police spoke of 15,000 participants, Fridays for Future of at least 35,000. According to the police, around 1,000 people, most of whom were masked, tried to get to the closed-off area of Lützerath at the edge of the demo. To repel them, the police used water cannons, batons and pepper spray. A police spokesman said more than 70 police officers had been injured since the start of the evacuation of Lützerath on Wednesday, most of them during the demo on Saturday. The injuries were only partly due to violence by demonstrators. Some of the officials, for example, also twisted their ankles in the muddy ground.

Since Wednesday, around 150 criminal proceedings have been initiated for resistance against police officers, physical harm and breach of the peace, said the police spokesman. According to the information, individual demonstrators also attacked police cars on Saturday and threw pyrotechnics in the direction of the officers. The energy company RWE said it was “appalled at the aggression and violence.” This has nothing to do with the otherwise peaceful demonstration.

Lots of head injuries
The state chairman of the police union (GdP), Michael Mertens, also spoke of massive attacks by some of the demonstrators on the police. “The call spread from the stage, ‘Everyone can do what they want. Everyone decides for themselves how far they go “it shouldn’t have existed,” criticized Mertens. “Militant opponents of lignite apparently took it as a license to use force against the police.” The organizers of the demo and spokesman for the Lützerather activists, on the other hand, accused the police of excessive violence. During the demo there was “an unbelievable level of police violence,” said a spokeswoman for “Lützerath Leben” of the German Press Agency. A spokeswoman for the demonstrators’ medical service said a “high two-digit to three-digit number” of participants were injured on Saturday. Among them were many seriously injured and some critically injured.

The injuries were partly caused by pepper spray, batons and fist attacks by the police. There were a lot of head injuries. “So the police not only hit activists in the head in individual cases, but systematically,” said the spokeswoman.