Thousands of people gathered in Belgrade on Saturday for a protest against Rio Tinto’s plans opening of a lithium mine in western Serbia before blocking the city’s main railway station.

The protest was the first mass gathering in years that was not addressed by any politician.

The crowd heard environmental activists and non-partisan figures who spoke out against the opening of the mine which experts say would cause mass pollution and destroy a vast area of rich farmland. According to some estimates, at least 40,000 people turned up for the protest.

The only uniformed police present in the area around the protest on the central Terazije square were traffic police re-directing vehicles.

The protesters left Terazije square in a column marching towards the highway bridge connecting Belgrade and New Belgrade before turning to the city’s main railway station and the New Belgrade railway station across the Sava river. Protesters unfurled a large Serbian state flag across the main railway station platforms. There was some confusion about what would happen because organizers would not divulge their plans before reaching the railway station.

Protest organizer Zlatko Kokanovic told N1 that the blockade of the railway would remain in place until the government meets the demands to ban the mining of lithium in Serbia.

One group of protesters stopped in front of the Serbian presidency building calling the crowd to join them.

Protests against Rio Tinto’s plans to conduct exploration and open a lithium mine have been staged in different towns and cities across Serbia for days with some analysts saying that the turnout for some of those protests was higher than ever.

The pro-regime TV Pink brought regime-supporting analysts and journalists to its studio to criticize the protest and defend the governent plans to allow Rio Tinto to mine lithium.

Prime Minister Milos Vucevic said in an X post that the protesters are a gang blocking the railway to undermine the lives of ordinary people. He added that they were openly threatening the life of President Aleksandar Vucic.