Following separate incidents in which children were raped in broad daylight in the multicultural city of Malmö, police warn that the number of sex attacks on young people could “escalate”.

Police spokesman for the region, Ewa-Gun Westford, disclosed that the force is seeing an increasing number of sexual assaults against children in Malmö. She said: “Some cases concern rapes while in other cases it’s sexual molestation, and we think [this situation] could escalate.”

Among the cases in Malmö being investigated are the rapes of two girls, one in October and one in July. In the July incident, a 14-year-old was dragged into the bushes by an unknown man and raped in the early afternoon while out walking by fields.

After telling her parents of the violent assault, the victim “broke down” and it was several days before police were able to understand her report as she was so traumatised by the attack. In a similar incident in October, a 12-year-old girl was raped by a stranger in early to mid afternoon.

A specialist team of 15 police officers, “with different skills”, has been assembled to investigate the epidemic of sexual assaults against young people. Most of the victims are young girls, but a boy is also among the plaintiffs.

In their analysis of these two crimes, and other recent sex attacks on minors, Malmö’s criminal profilers warn that DNA shows there are at least two perpetrators involved.

“We do not want to create a rancorous atmosphere among the public but want to tread carefully. The information we have leads in a certain direction, but it is very sensitive and [these are] difficult issues for the vulnerable,” Westford told 24Malmö.

Asked whether serial rapists are on the loose in Malmö, the police spokesman said: “We do not know. The group that developed the perpetrator profile warns that the situation may escalate and [sex attacks on children may] happen more often.”

24Malmö reported that police “have [only] vague descriptions of the offenders and therefore do not want to go public with [the profiles]”. Both the press and police in Sweden, as in neighbouring Denmark and Norway, have become notorious for their political correctness in withholding the nationalities and any description of suspects from their crime reports.

However, appeals for witnesses in July noted that the man who raped the girl of 14 did not speak Swedish. Aftonbladet reported that several of the victims in Malmö have given similar descriptions of their attackers.

A source who spoke to the newspaper about the incidents said: “They have been rough and ruthless, and [the attacks] occurred outdoors in the daytime. You do not really know what you are dealing with at the moment, just that it is not good.”

The third largest city in Sweden and notorious for violence, Malmö’s retired police chief last year told Breitbart London crime there had skyrocketed as a result of mass immigration.

Former soldiers now working in the police bomb disposal unit of the city, where 43 per cent of its inhabitants have foreign backgrounds, have said the constant grenade attacks in Malmö remind them of the years they served in war-torn regions of Iraq.