Assailants ‘blocked police from getting to victims’ during Cologne attacks

It has emerged that several women reported similar attacks on that night in four other German cities and in neighbouring Austria.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said yesterday that Germany must have a “fundamental” debate about how to integrate newcomers. Many people have blamed her for encouraging migrants to come to Europe with her announcement in August that she would ignore EU rules and give asylum to all Syrians.

Germany’s Justice Minister Heiko Maas said yesterday that if asylum seekers are found to have taken part in sex attacks, “deportations would certainly be conceivable”.

He said the law allows for people to be deported during asylum proceedings if they are sentenced to a year or more in prison.

Cologne police say they have received 121 criminal complaints of sexual assault and robbery during the New Year’s Eve festivities.

In the internal police report about the attacks, a senior official in Germany’s national po- lice wrote that “women, accompanied or not, literally ran a ‘gauntlet’ through masses of heavily intoxicated men”.

The file, leaked to German newspapers Der Spiegel and Bild, reveals officers lost control and were unable to stop the perpetrators as “there were simply too many”.

Groups of men formed tight clusters to prevent police pushing their way through to help victims, and tried to intimidate women as they reported what had happened. Suspects tore up their migrant residence permits in front of police while grinning and boasting: “You can’t touch me. I’ll just go back tomorrow and get a new one.”

Officers were bombarded with fireworks and pelted with bottles and were unable to detain people because of an apparent lack of resources. The railway station was turned into an “open toilet” by the drunken mob, with faeces and vomit seen everywhere, it added.

The police chief writing the report concluded: “The very high number of migrants was striking. The officers met a level of disrespect I have not seen in 29 years of service.”

A British victim too scared to reveal her identity yesterday told how she had fireworks thrown at her by attackers she said spoke neither German nor English. “They were trying to hug us, kiss us, make us walk with them. We refused,” she told the BBC. “One man stole my friend’s bag. Another tried to get us into his ‘private taxi’ … We all were scared. I will never go back to Cologne.”

Another woman, Evelin, told German television: “There were so many people there that I no longer was in control of myself, where to go or how to defend myself … We ran to these police cars but there was no one there … the police ... were so understaffed that they couldn’t deal with this.”

A victim named as Busra added: “They (the attackers) felt like they were in power and that they could do anything with the women who were out in the street partying. They touched us everywhere.”

Women claiming to be victims of similar attacks in Salzburg yesterday came forward amid accusations Austrian authorities had tried to keep quiet what had happened.

One told Austrian newspaper Österreich she and two friends were approached at 2am by men who grabbed them and licked their faces.

Merkel pledged strong action and stressed that “we must also speak again about the cultural fundamentals of our coexistence”.

Police said they were investigating “16 young men … mostly of North African origin” but no one has yet been charged. Officers in Hamburg received more than 53 complaints. – Daily Mail