Ten people from Black Lives Matter were arrested in August after they blocked the main road to London’s Heathrow Airport.
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All flights to and from London City Airport have been disrupted or cancelled as protest group occupies runway.
The activists added in their statement: “Black people are the first to die, not the first to fly, in this racist climate crisis”.
It also references “charter flights” to “remove black people from the country based on their immigration status”.
A third said: “The UK is the biggest per-capita contributor to temperature change & among the least vulnerable to its affects”.
Flights from the airport have been delayed and all flights due to land have been diverted to Gatwick and Southend airports. We are awaiting the arrival of specialist resources that are able to “unlock” the protesters. “Police are now on the scene”.
The Evening Standard newspaper earlier reported that protesters had used a boat to reach the runway.
The demonstrators chained themselves to a tripod they erected on the runway in an attempt to protest the high air pollution which impacts black lives.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said that seven protestors had been arrested.
The process of removing the protesters began at 9:30 am, but it was not until around 11:30 am that the runway was finally cleared, blocking all flights for six hours.
Members of Black Lives Matter UK gained access to the London City Airport runway and staged a protest in light of the plans to expand the airport.
It is not the first time that Black Lives Matter, a movement that was set up in the United States after the killing of black teenager Trayvon Martin four years ago, has targeted London’s transport links. “We apologise to passengers for any inconvenience to their journey”, an airport spokesperson said.
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The airport offers short-haul flights to locations in Britain and mainland Europe, and served over four million passengers previous year, many of them travelling for business.
