Four Syrian asylum seekers were arrested by police in the German town of Löbau after they filmed and molested underage girls at a swimming pool.

Police arrested the group of Syrian asylum seekers at the Herrenmannsbad outdoor swimming pool on Friday. Two of the men, aged 31 and 27, are said to have filmed several underage girls at the facility against their permission and then tried to sexually touch them in the swimming pool, MDR reports.

“Two asylum seekers, or perhaps four, have bothered girls there. They also made videos and that is the charge. We are now awaiting the investigation of the police and the prosecution,” said the mayor of Löbau Dietmar Buchholz.

The asylum seekers are said to have used their mobile phones to film the young girls. When one tried to physically molest a girl, the lifeguard on duty told him to stop and then called the police.

Police say the 31-year-old migrant was filming the girls whilst his 27-year-old fellow countryman was the one who molested several children in the pool itself. A 19-year-old and a 21-year-old are currently being treated as witnesses to the alleged crimes.

Mayor Buchholz announced the four men would be banned from the Herrenmannsbad pool going which the town runs.

Nearby Lake Berzdorf has also seen men of a “Mediterranean appearance” film women with their smartphones. As a result, the spokesman for the town of Görlitz, which manages the lake, said they have hired security to patrol the area.

Since 2015 there have been a high number of sex attacks in swimming pools in Germany and Austria. The most notorious attack occurred in Vienna when an Iraqi asylum seeker brutally raped a young boy in the pool changing room, the migrant claiming he was having a “sexual emergency”. He recently had his sentence reduced by a judge who deemed the seven years he was meant to serve as being too harsh.

Many cities and pools have tried various methods to reduce the number of sex attacks by migrants at swimming pools. Some have tried banning asylum seekers altogether but have faced immense opposition by left-wing, pro-migrant groups.

Leaked police documents last year showed the number of migrant pool sex attacks had sharply risen. “In particular, offences of rape and sexual abuse of children in bathing establishments is significant,” the report said.