Protesters call for Merkel to resign after Cologne attacks
Protesters call for Merkel to resign after Cologne attacksReuters

The downtown area of the city of Cologne in Germany has become a battleground, as mobs of angry “unknown assailants” have begun attacking groups of Arab migrants in response to the overwhelming amount of attacks on German women that occurred in the city on New Year’s eve.

Until now, German authorities have been remiss to admit that the over 500 complaints of assault filed by German women since New Year's eve have been perpetrated by immigrants. But on Monday, the German official responsible for investigating the attacks on the women said that the suspects were "almost exclusively" of an immigrant background, and that most of them were of North Africa or of Arab origin.

Interior minister of North-Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf Jaeger, said that recent arrivals to Germany were among the suspects. Jaeger went on to further accuse Cologne Police of making “serious mistakes” in the way in which they handled the events.

According to his report, some 1,000 men of North African and Arabic origin gathered together in the area around Cologne's cathedral and main train station on New Year’s Eve. This group then broke up into smaller groups and began to surround and attack women. The group was made up predominantly of immigrants, even those who arrived in the past year, and came to Cologne from other cities.

The volume of attacks has shocked Germany, and Jaeger himself is now under a lot of political pressure. On Friday he fired Cologne's police chief Wolfgang Albers.

Mr. Jaeger criticized the police for not calling for reinforcements on New Year’s Eve, as well as for the way that they handled the investigation and failed to properly inform the public about the investigation following the event.

Public and violent backlashes against the immigrants in the city have begun. Police said on Sunday that they had received reports warning that "groups of people were seeking to provoke" a fight as a response to the attacks. The police dispatched reinforcements to the area between the station and the city's iconic Gothic cathedral.

In spite of the extra forces, a group of immigrants were attacked outside of the Cathedral near the station. A group of about 20 unknown assailants attacked a group of Pakistani people and one Syrian on Sunday evening in two separate instances.

On Monday, police reported that the mob had attacked six Pakistanis, two of whom had to be hospitalized. Shortly thereafter, a group of five people attacked a 39-year-old Syrian national, injuring him slightly.

Approximately 1.1 million asylum seekers immigrated to Germany in 2015 under Chancellor Angela Merkel’s immigration policy. A policy which has come under severe criticism following the New Year’s attacks.