Black Lives Matter UK activists close runway

Nine protesters who shut down London City Airport on Tuesday were arrested, police said, on charges of aggravated trespass. Flights resumed after six hours of delays caused by demonstrators blocking the runway, compounded by IT problems at British Airways in the UK and the US.

London City Airport is located between the British capital's two major financial districts and businesses from that sector make up the bulk of its client base. Black Lives Matter UK, which organized the protest, released a statement explaining that they were raising awareness at how the airport serves these customers at the expense of the community in Newham, where it is located.

"It is an airport designed for the wealthy," read a statement released by the group. "At the same time 40 percent of Newham's population struggle to survive on 20,000 pounds ($26,600) or less. When black people in Britain are 28 percent more likely to be exposed to air pollution than their white counterparts, we know that environmental inequality is a racist crisis."

The protesters began their demonstration around dawn and refused to be moved until the early afternoon, resulting in the cancelation of 16 flights and delaying a further 12.

This is the second such protest is as many months organized by Black Lives Matter UK, a British offshoot of the US movement founded to protest structural injustice against people of color. In August, activists blocked one of the runways at London's busy Heathrow Airport on the fifth anniversary of the death of Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old black man shot dead by London police under dubious circumstances. The rioting in the aftermath of the killing was the city's worst civil unrest in decades.

es/ls (AP, Reuters)