in World News MIGRANT SEX ASSUALTS SWEEP EUROPE
MIGRANT SEX ASSUALTS SWEEP EUROPE
Unprecedented sex harassment in Helsinki at New Year, Finnish police report
Finnish police ‘tipped off’ about plans by groups of asylum seekers to sexually harass women
By Richard Orange, Malmo
Asylum seekers who gathered in central Helsinki on New Years’s Eve “had similar plans” to commit sexual assault and other crimes as those who targeted women in the Germany city of Cologne, Finnish Police have reported.
Three Iraqi asylum seekers have been arrested for committing sexual assaults during the celebrations in the city’s Senate Square, where some 20,000 had gathered, and another 15 arrested for other disturbances.
Security personnel reported “widespead sexual harrassment” during the celebrations, police added, with women complaining that asylum seekers had groped their breasts and kissed them without permission.
“This phenomenon is new in Finnish sexual crime history,” Ilkka Koskimaki,” the deputy chief of police in Helsinki, told the Telegraph. ”We have never before had this kind of sexual harrassment happening at New Year’s Eve.”
He said that the police had received tip-offs from staff at the asylum reception centres.
“Our information from these reception centres were that disturbances or other crimes would happen in the city centre. We were prepared for fights and sexual harrassment and thefts.”
He said that police deployed a “very massive presence” to controlthe estimated 1,000 Iraqi asylum seekers who had gathered in the tunnels surrounding the central railway station by 11pm, many of whom appeared to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Mr Koskimaki said that sexual assults in parks and on the streets had been unknown in Finland before a record 32,000 asylum seekers arrived in 2015, making the 14 cases which happened last year “big news in the city”
New Year sex assaults reported in Sweden
Swedish police say at least 15 young women have reported being groped by groups of men on New Year’s Eve in the city of Kalmar.
The Swedish reports follow a string of sex assaults and robberies during New Year’s celebrations in Germany.
Kalmar police spokesman Johan Bruun on Friday said groups of men encircled women on a crowded square and groped them. He said no one was physically injured but that many of those targeted were terrified.
He said two men, both asylum-seekers, were informed through interpreters that they’re suspected of sexual assault and that police are trying to identify other suspects.
Asked about similarities to assaults in Germany, Bruun said “we are aware of what happened in Germany but we are focusing our investigation on what happened in Kalmar.”
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