Hong Kong police have reopened public access to a university campus after blocking it for 12 days to try to arrest anti-government protesters holed up inside.
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University became a battleground on November 17 between police and protesters armed with bows and arrows as well as Molotov cocktails.
On Friday afternoon, police removed the cordons surrounding the campus and departed, ending the 13-day siege.
An aerial view of a "SOS" sign formed with clothes and helmets inside the Hong Kong Polytechnic University campus. Source: AAP
They said they had arrested a total of 1,377 people, including more than 800 who left the campus during the siege.
"Only 46 of the people arrested are students from Polytechnic University," its president Jin-Guang Teng told reporters.
"Polytechnic University is the biggest victim in the occupation of the campus."
The university now faces a mammoth clean-up with vast swathes of the campus ransacked, filled with broken glass, barricades and rotting food.
Weapons seized
After university leaders said almost all protesters had left, police teams moved in on Thursday to gather weapons left behind after the occupation.
Hong Kong Police Chief Superintendent Kwok Ka-chuen said the police seized over 4,000 petrol bombs, 1,339 explosive items, 601 bottles of corrosive liquids and 573 weapons.
Officers from the police and fire services were split up into different groups and systematically entered into different buildings on the campus to remove and handle all dangerous items and offensive weapons.
After a two-week siege, the campus grounds have been extensively damaged. A large number of petrol bombs, gas cylinders and corrosives were exposed under the sun light for a long time, posing a threat to all personnel at the scene.
Police warned students against further violent activities.
"Police would like to reiterate that we will not tolerate - we will not tolerate - any kind of violence, or illegal activities. And we will stringently follow up the investigation in a professional and impartial manner," said Assistant Commissioner of Police Operations Chow Yat-ming.
Campus closed until further notice
In a letter to students on Friday, university officials warned the campus was "still unsafe and will continue (to) be closed."
But members of the public still made their way onto campus.
"All the images of the battle came right back to my mind when I saw all the debris," one lady told Apple Daily in a live broadcast, bursting into tears.
Hong Kong's protests are fuelled by years of seething anger over China's perceived erosion of liberties in the semi-autonomous city.
Millions of Hong Kongers marched in protest rallies throughout the summer after Lam's government introduced a bill allowing extraditions to the authoritarian mainland.
It was belatedly withdrawn under public pressure, but by then violent clashes between police and protesters had become the norm and the movement had snowballed into wider calls for police accountability and fully free elections.
More than 5,800 people have been arrested and nearly 1,000 charged according to government figures while police have fired more than 12,000 tear gas canisters.
Beijing denies stamping out Hong Kong's liberties and has portrayed the protests as a foreign-backed "colour revolution" aimed at destabilising mainland China.
