Flights from London City Airport were suspended Tuesday morning after a group of Black Lives Matter activists locked themselves together in a protest on the runway, an airport representative said.
Black Lives Matter UK said on its Twitter account that activists in support of the movement had taken the action “to protest the UK’s environmental impact on black people.”
The group seemed to be protesting multiple issues — the impact of climate change on black people and the migrant crisis.
“At London City Airport a small elite is able to fly, in 2016 alone 3,176 migrants have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean,” it tweeted.
The Twitter account isn’t verified. Airport and police officials have not commented on the claim of responsibility, and CNN has not been able to independently verify it.
An image tweeted out showed the protesters on the runway, alongside banners saying “black lives matter” and “climate crisis is a racist crisis.”
“7/10 of the countries most affected by climate change are in sub-Saharan Africa,” the account tweeted. “By 2050 there will be 200 million climate refugees. Black people are the first to die, not the first to fly, in this racist climate crisis.”
London City Airport, the fifth busiest airport in the London region, and is popular with bankers and corporate fliers due to its proximity to Canary Wharf and the City of London, the British capital’s two financial centers.
Police negotiating with protesters
The Metropolitan Police said in a statement that there were nine protesters on the runway, who had erected a tripod and locked themselves together.
Seven have been arrested, but only two removed from the runway so far. Work was continuing to remove the remaining protesters from the runway.
Police began the arrests at about 9.30 a.m. local time (4.30 a.m. ET) — about four hours after the police were first alerted to the protest.
The seven had been arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass, being unlawfully airside and breaching London City Airport bylaws, the police said in a statement.
An airport representative said some scheduled arrivals were being diverted to Southend Airport.
The exact goal of the protest was unclear. The conflation of the issues — and the suggestion that the airport was for the “elite” — prompted a number of Twitter users to comment that they were confused by the protest.
Heathrow targeted previously
Last month, Black Lives Matter UK protesters blocked a main road leading to Britain’s largest airport, Heathrow, bringing traffic to a standstill. Similar actions were carried out in Birmingham and Nottingham in a coordinated day of action.
The network of anti-racism activists, inspired by the US movement of the same name, said at the time that the protests were called to mark the fifth anniversary of the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan, whose death sparked riots in 2011.