A surge in nonwhite invader sex attacks and assaults has forced police in the Swedish city of Östersund to advise women not to go outdoors alone.

National broadcaster SVT reports what police area manager Stephen Jerand described as a “worrying trend” of unprovoked violence on women in public places.

Speaking at a press conference, police said they had never experienced crime of this nature in the small city of Östersund, which has a population of just 44,000.

“This is serious,” Jerand said. “We care about the protection of women and that is why we go out and talk about this.”

Police said there had been six reports of attacks since February 20, including two 10-year-old girls who were molested at a bus station in the center of the city.

On February 26, a woman was beaten by three men, one of whom was arrested. On Saturday night there was one incident of attempted rape and another of assault.

In that incident, police said a lone assailant walked up to the woman and “hit her in the face with a closed fist.” The attacker, described only as “foreign,” then flung the woman down and pressed her head to the ground, before disappearing from the scene, according to the police report.

In the attempted rape incident, three young men who “spoke Swedish with an accent” attempted to drag a woman to the ground and tear off her pants, but she resisted and managed to break loose, the police report said.

It comes after a poll conducted by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet found nearly half of all women in the country are now scared to exercise alone at night.

According to the survey, 46 percent of women aged 16 and over felt either “very” or “somewhat” unsafe when they are alone in the dark, compared with 20 percent of men.

Almost one third said if they were caught by sunset, that they would rather stay at a friend’s house than try to get home alone.