UPDATE - London airport protest grounds flights

UPDATES WITH POLICE ARRESTS, BLM STATEMENT, EDITS/REWRITES THROUGHOUT

LONDON (AA) – Nine demonstrators were arrested at London City Airport after they stormed the runway to protest the impact of climate change on black people.

Flights were suspended for several hours Tuesday morning at the airport, which is heavily used by people working in the U.K. capital’s banking and finance sector, as police attempted to negotiate with the protesters.

They are understood to have broken into the airport shortly after 5 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) and immediately locked themselves to a wooden tripod structure they erected on the runway.

Photographs posted on Facebook showed the demonstrators lying on the ground around banners that read “Black Lives Matter” and “Climate crisis is a racist crisis”, watched by a small number of police officers.

London’s Metropolitan Police said all nine were arrested on suspicion of aggravated trespass, being unlawfully “airside” and breaching London City Airport bylaws.

“All have now been removed from the runway and taken into police custody,” it said in a statement.

Dozens of early morning flights were cancelled at London City, which is the U.K. capital’s fifth airport and is heavily used by the nearby Canary Wharf financial district.

Black Lives Matter U.K. said in a series of tweets that black people were victims of a “racist climate crisis”.

“Whilst at London City Airport a small elite is able to fly, in 2016 alone 3,176 migrants are known to have died or gone missing in the Mediterranean,” it said.

“Black people are the first to die, not the first to fly, in this racist climate crisis.

“We note, however, that the U.K. is willing to charter special flights to remove black people from the country based on their immigration status.”

It remained unclear how the protesters accessed the runway, situated next to the River Thames and surrounded by fencing, with some speculation that a rubber dinghy may have been used to cross the water.

Airports were already in a high state of alert in the U.K., where the terror threat level is at “severe”, meaning an attack is highly likely.

The Black Lives Matter U.K. group came to prominence last month when they staged a series of roadblocks, including outside Heathrow Airport, the country’s busiest hub.