ERKELENZ (dpa-AFX) - After clashes between protesters and police outside the embattled village of Lützerath, both sides have accused each other of violence. Meanwhile, the demolition of Lützerath progressed quickly, most of the buildings were already no longer standing on Sunday. Also, according to police reports, only a few activists remained on the site. Two climate activists, however, were still holding out in an underground tunnel. When the evacuation and demolition are finished, the energy company RWE wants to excavate the coal lying under Lützerath.

Against this, many thousands of people had demonstrated in the neighboring village of Keyenberg on Saturday. The police spoke of 15,000 participants, Fridays for Future of at least 35,000. At the edge of the demonstration, according to the police, about 1,000 mostly masked "disruptors" tried to enter the cordoned-off area of Lützerath. To repel them, police used water cannons, batons and pepper spray.

Since the evacuation of Lützerath began on Wednesday, a total of more than 70 police officers have been injured, most of them during the demonstration on Saturday, a police spokesman said. However, the injuries were only partly due to violence by demonstrators. Some of the officers, for example, had also fallen over in the muddy ground.

Since Wednesday, about 150 criminal cases have been initiated for resistance against police officers, assault and breach of the peace, the police spokesman said. According to the information, individual demonstrators also attacked police emergency vehicles on Saturday and threw pyrotechnics in the direction of the officers. Energy company RWE said it was "appalled by the aggression and violence." This had nothing to do with the otherwise peaceful demonstration.

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 he wants. Everyone decides for himself how far he goes" should not have been there," Mertens criticized. "It has apparently been understood by militant lignite opponents as a carte blanche to proceed with violence against the police officers."

The organizers of the demo and spokesmen for the Lützerath activists conversely accused the police of excesses of violence. There had been "an unbelievable amount of police violence" at the demo, a spokeswoman for "Lützerath lebt" told the German Press Agency. A spokeswoman for the demonstrators' medical service said a "high double-digit to triple-digit number" of participants had been injured on Saturday. Among them, she said, were many seriously injured and some with life-threatening injuries. Some of the injuries were caused by pepper sprays, baton and fist attacks by police officers. There were particularly many head injuries, he said. "So the police have not only in individual cases, but systematically hit the head of activists," the spokeswoman said.

A video shows Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, German activist Luisa Neubauer and others also being pushed away by police officers in a field. Thunberg was the keynote speaker at the rally. "Lützerath is still there, and as long as the coal is still in the ground, this fight is not over," the 20-year-old said to cheers from the audience. She said it was incomprehensible to her that coal was still being mined and burned in 2023, even though it was well known that the climate change it was causing was costing lives in many parts of the world. "Germany, as one of the world's biggest polluters, has an enormous responsibility," Thunberg warned.

In an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the world-renowned activist criticized the Green Party for its support for the demolition of Lützerath. She said corporations like RWE should actually be held accountable for how they treat people. "That the Greens compromise with such companies shows where their priorities lie," Thunberg said.

Leading Green politicians such as German Economics Minister Robert Habeck and his NRW colleague Mona Neubaur justify the demolition of Lützerath and the removal of the coal underneath it by saying that in return the coal phase-out, brought forward by eight years to 2030, has been achieved. Five neighboring villages would be spared. The original residents of Lützerath have all moved away. Courts have dismissed lawsuits against the eviction./uho/DP/nas