From Sue Reid writing at the Daily Mail:
The exquisite sound of Cologne’s cathedral choir drifted out into the cool night air of the city’s main square on Wednesday evening. A Holy mass, celebrating baby Jesus’s baptism, was packed with worshippers marking the 12th day of Christmas in this fiercely Christian part of Germany.
As the service ended and families poured out onto the pavement, an 18-year-old German girl called Michelle stood under bright arc lights nearby giving an interview to a television crew.
She and a group of friends had been sexually attacked in the same cathedral square by gangs of marauding men a few days before, on New Year’s Eve. The girls were chased, cornered and intimately groped before their mobiles and wallets were stolen.
‘The men were all foreigners, and when we protested, in German, they did not understand us,’ said Michelle during the interview.
She is just one of 120 women who were abused that horrific night in the square, which is dotted with bars, nightclubs and coffee shops, and is where Cologne locals have seen in the New Year for centuries.
The men, speaking Arabic and seemingly either drunk or high on drugs, moved around in large groups among a gathering of around 1,000 male migrants and deliberately targeted women. The men easily outnumbered the 190 police officers on duty, who were quickly overwhelmed.
….
The attacks have sounded the alarm bell in Germany over the consequences of mass migration. A country dogged by guilt over its Nazi past, it has enjoyed its recent role as saviour of Europe, welcoming in foreigners from the war-divided Middle East and Africa’s poverty hotspots.
When the migrants began arriving in their thousands each day last summer, there were welcoming parties across the country. ‘We love refugees!’ proclaimed banners outside reception centres.
Yet that warm hospitality is now being replaced by fear, as a society renowned for its good order begins to buckle under the strain — and to worry if it has made a mistake.
Figures this week revealed that 1.1 million newcomers registered for asylum in Germany in 2015. Many more — including potential jihadists and opportunists pretending to be refugees — are suspected of slipping in under the radar since August, when German Chancellor Angela Merkel controversially announced she would welcome all Syrian migrants who knocked on the door. Mrs Merkel has since dramatically changed her tune, saying this week that she wanted to stem the flow of migrants into the European Union, while keeping all borders open.
Yet the influx into Europe since she made her grand gesture shows no sign of abating. German ministers say 3,200 migrants a day continue to enter the country.
Read the rest of the story at the Daily Mail.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.