The accusations only came to light with the intervention of the media. According to the testimony of one of the victims, the police did not want to solve the case.
The prosecutor’s office in Milan, Italy, is investigating suspicions of multiple sexual assaults on women during New Year’s Eve celebrations in the city center. TASR informs about it according to the agency ANSA.
The case became public only later, when the statements of the attacked women were published by the media. On Friday, Italian police interviewed one of the victims from the Belgian city of Liege. She was part of a group of four women and two men in their 20s who wanted to welcome the New Year in the square in front of Milan’s Duomo. After midnight, they were surrounded by several dozen Arabic-speaking youths with “obviously evil intentions”.
“I was scared, they were pulling me from one side to the other and I couldn’t get away,” she said. They were helped by an Italian whose wife was also harassed by the men. One of the victims told the Belgian news site 7sur7 that they were groped with sexual intent and women’s hands were shoved under their clothes.
The police did not solve the attacks
The attacks were reported to the police, but according to the woman, they were told that, unfortunately, there was nothing they could do. “They clearly told us that it would be useless and said ‘ciao’,” she complained.
“They pushed us and I fell. They immediately pounced on me and started reaching under my skirt. I had dozens of hands on me and everyone just laughed at me,” another tourist from Germany described the attack.
An Italian citizen also testified to the police in this case on Friday, and other victims are expected to testify next week. At the moment, no specific suspects are known, in an effort to find the culprits, the police are examining footage from security cameras in and around the square.
Similar incidents in Milan also happened during New Year’s celebrations in 2022. On New Year’s Eve 2015, groups of mostly drunken men robbed and sexually harassed more than a hundred women in Cologne, Germany.
