Migrants attacked by mobs in Germany

Six Pakistanis and a Syrian man were attacked on Sunday evening by about 20 unknown assailants in the German city of Cologne.

With tensions running high, and more than 500 reported assaults against women on New Year's Eve in the western city blamed on migrants, police said on Monday that the mob attacked six Pakistanis, two of whom had to be hospitalised.

Shortly afterwards, a group of five people attacked a 39-year-old Syrian national, injuring him slightly.

Sunday's violence, in the city centre outside the main railway station marked a new escalation since a rash of assaults during year-end celebrations.

Police on Sunday said they had received reports of "groups of people seeking to provoke" and dispatched reinforcements to the area between the station and the city's famed Gothic cathedral.

Officers checked the identification papers of about 100 people and two were detained for refusing to obey police orders.

On Saturday, police used tear gas and water cannon to clear a rally of the far-right PEGIDA movement in Cologne, after protesters flung firecrackers and bottles at officers they accused of failing to prevent assaults during New Year festivities.

'Foreign origin'

German authorities said on Monday that nearly all the suspects in a spate of New Year's Eve violence against women in Cologne were "of foreign origin".

Ralf Jaeger, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state, released initial findings of a criminal probe over the crime spree that has piled pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel over her liberal stance towards refugees.

Nearly all the people who committed these crimes were of foreign origin

"Witness accounts and the report by the (local) police as well as findings by the federal police indicate that nearly all the people who committed these crimes were of foreign origin," he said.

Although no formal charges have been laid, Jaeger said the attackers emerged from a group of more than 1,000 "Arab and North African" men.

In the face of outrage over the New Year's Eve violence, Merkel has taken a tough line against those convicted.

She has signalled her backing for legal changes to ease expulsion rules, with officials within her ruling coalition expected to swiftly negotiate the proposals this week.

	Protesters have demonstrated against violence against women in Cologne [AFP]

Police said late on Sunday that more than a week on from New Year's Eve, some 516 complaints had now been lodged, including 40 percent related to sexual assault.


Witnesses described terrifying scenes of hundreds of women running a gauntlet of groping hands, lewd insults and robberies in the mob violence.

'Assaults were planned'

The scale of the Cologne assaults shocked Germany and put a spotlight on the 1.1 million asylum seekers who arrived in the country in the past year.

It has also fuelled fears, with a poll published by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper saying that 39 percent of those surveyed felt police did not provide sufficient protection for the public at large, while 57 percent did.

57 percent of Germans feared crime would rise along with the record influx of asylum seekers - RTL poll

And just under half - 49 percent - believed the same sort of mob violence could hit their hometown, reported the newspaper.

A separate poll by broadcaster RTL found that 57 percent of Germans feared crime would rise along with the record influx of asylum seekers, while 40 percent disagreed.

Nevertheless, a majority - 60 percent - said their opinion of foreigners had not changed, while 37 percent said they had become more critical and negative towards newcomers.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas has said he believed the violence in the western city of Cologne was organised.

No one can tell me that this was not coordinated or planned - German Justice Minister Heiko Maas

"For such a horde of people to meet and commit such crimes, it has to have been planned somehow," he told Bild am Sonntag.

"No one can tell me that this was not coordinated or planned. The suspicion is that a specific date and an expected crowd was picked."

Separately in Hamburg, police said they had received 133 criminal complaints for similar violence during the northern city's own New Year's Eve celebrations.

	Pupils attend a 'Welcome Class' for immigrant children in Berlin [Getty]

With thousands of asylum seekers still set to arrive in Germany, Merkel has come under fire, even within her own conservative alliance, who want her to put a cap on the number of refugees in the country.

Critics have questioned Germany's ability to integrate the unprecedented number of newcomers, many of whom hail from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.