A young couple from Poland were subjected to a “brutal and bestial attack” by four men suspected to be African migrants on a beach in Rimini, Italy.

The 26-year-olds were taking an evening stroll on their last night in the popular tourist spot when they were set upon by four men, Wiadomości reports.

The young man was beaten unconscious by the gang, who then subjected his partner to multiple rapes in front of him. Both were also robbed.

The Polish consulate in Milan say they are providing every assistance to the couple, who were both hospitalised following their ordeal.

Italian authorities have described the “brutal and beastial attack” as an “act of cruel aggression”, and called on the public “to cooperate with the police forces informing each and every element that may be of use in the investigation”.

“If they catch the perpetrators, then prison is not enough,” commented Matteo Salvini, leader of the populist Northern League — reiterating his earlier calls for migrant sex attackers to be chemically castrated.

Giorgia Meloni, the former government youth minister who now leads the conservative Brothers of Italy party, suggested that law and order in Italy was breaking down, and that the country was beginning to resemble “the worst favelas of South America” in places.

Italy’s proximity to Libya, reduced to failed state status following the disastrous 2011 military intervention led by former U.S. president Barack Obama and former UK prime minister David Cameron, means it has been hit harder than any other European country by the migrant crisis, with the possible exception of Greece.

The number of foreigners living in Italy as residents has rocketed by 25 per cent from 2012 to January 2017, and by an astonishing 270 per cent between 2002 and 2017 — statistics which may herald a significant and possibly irreversible demographic shift.

Fo llow Jack Montgomery on Twitter: @JackBMontgomery