Cologne-style attacks in other cities

The German police has found that the wave of sexual assaults and robberies on New Year’s eve did not only happen in Cologne but that similar incidents also took place in 12 of Germany’s regional stat-es, local media reported on Saturday.

Hundreds of women have reported they were groped and robbed by mainly North African suspects outside Colo-gne’s main train station where crowds had gathered to ring in the New Year. Similar assaults, however, also took place that night in 12 of Ger-many’s 16 regional states, according to the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and the NDR and WDR television stations, citing a report by the German judicial police (BKA).

Contacted by AFP the BKA had no immediate comment on the report.

“The phenomenon of sexual violence, in part linked with robberies, is much greater than we previously thought,” the newspaper said on its website, adding that the regional states were affected to different deg-rees. The most affected state was North Rhine-Westphalia, which inclu-des the city of Cologne, where 1,000 complaints have been filed, followed by Hamburg with 200.

In other states the number of reported incidents was lower: Hesse (31 complaints); Bavaria (27), Baden-Wurtlemberg (25), Bremen (11) and Berlin (6). One case was reported in Lower-Saxony, Brand-eburg, Saxony, Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland.

Meanwhile, Germany is now denying entry to about 200 others daily at its borders, the interior minister said on Sunday.

The tighter border controls come after the EU’s top economy in 2015 took in a record 1.1 million refugees and migrants, straining resources and sparking heated political debate.

“Anyone who doesn’t want to apply for political asylum in Germany and wants to illegally enter Germany has no right to be here,” the minister, Thomas de Maiziere, told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

“People who are fleeing war and persecution are offered security and protection in Germany,” the minister, Thomas de Maiziere, told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag.

“But that also means that those who do not seek this protection from us are refused entry at the border. “Anyone who doesn’t want to apply for political asylum in Germany and wants to illegally enter Germany has no right to be here.”