Right-wing demonstrators hold a sign "Rapefugees not welcome - !Stay away!" and a sign with a crossed out mosque at a rally on Saturday.

Right-wing demonstrators hold a sign "Rapefugees not welcome - !Stay away!" and a sign with a crossed out mosque at a rally on Saturday.

A GROUP OF Pakistanis and a Syrian were violently attacked by about 20 unknown assailants late last night in the German city of Cologne, police said.

With tensions running high over more than 500 reported assaults against women on New Year’s Eve in the western city blamed on migrants, police said that the mob attacked six Pakistanis, two of whom had to be hospitalised.

Shortly afterward, a group of five people attacked a 39-year-old Syrian national, injuring him slightly.

The violence, in the city centre outside the main railway station marked a new escalation since the rash of assaults occurred during year-end celebrations.

Police said yesterday they had received reports of “groups of people seeking to provoke” and dispatched reinforcements to the area between the station and the city’s iconic Gothic cathedral.

Officers checked the identification of about 100 people and two were detained for refusing to obey police orders.

Rally

On Saturday, police used tear gas and water cannon to clear a rally of the far-right PEGIDA movement in Cologne, after protesters flung firecrackers and bottles at officers they accused of failing to prevent assaults during New Year’s festivities.

Police said late yesterday that more than a week on from New Year’s Eve, some 516 complaints had now been lodged, including 40% that are related to sexual assault.

Witnesses described terrifying scenes of hundreds of women running a gauntlet of groping hands, lewd insults and robberies in the mob violence.

The scale of the Cologne assaults has shocked Germany and put a spotlight on the 1.1 million asylum seekers who arrived in the country last year.

© – AFP 2016