New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany

New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany
Part of the European migrant crisis
Cologne Hamburg Stuttgart Düsseldorf Bielefeld Dortmund Cities where incidents were reported
Location	Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Sweden
Date	31 December 2015 (2015-12-31)–1 January 2016 (2016-01-01) (CET)
Target	The largest crime reported was theft and both women and men were victims of theft and/or physical assault. Women were the primary targets of groping and other sexual assaults, including at least five alleged rapes.
Attack type	Groping, sexual assault, robbery, theft, five alleged rapes
Victims	At least 24 alleged rapes: 22 complaints in Cologne 2 complaints in Hamburg Nearly 2,300 sexual assaults and robberies reported: 1,616 crimes in Cologne 296 in Düsseldorf 236 in Hamburg More in other cities A total of 1,950+ victims
Perpetrators	Men of Arab or North African appearance
Number of participants	2,000+

New Year's Eve sexual assaults in Germany refers 2015/2016 New Year's Eve celebrations, incidents of mass sexual assaults, and numerous thefts in Germany, mainly in Cologne city center. There were similar incidents at the public celebrations in Hamburg, Dortmund, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart and Bielefeld. For all of Germany, police report that ~1,200 women were sexually assaulted and estimate that at least 2,000 men were involved, acting in groups.

All of the incidents involved women being surrounded and assaulted by groups of men on the street. Police reported that the perpetrators were men of "Arab or North African appearance" and said that Germany had never experienced such mass sexual assaults before. The German Federal Criminal Police Office said the incidents were a phenomenon known in some Arab countries as taharrush jamai (translated as "group sexual harassment"). The attacks sparked an international outcry, a debate about women's rights, the sustainability of Germany's asylum policy, and social differences between European societies and those of North Africa and the Middle East. Taking place during the European migrant crisis (see timeline), the attacks also led to a hardening of attitudes against immigration.

Chief Prosecutor Ulrich Bremer stated that "the overwhelming majority" of suspects were asylum seekers and illegal immigrants who had recently arrived in Germany. Only a small number of the alleged perpetrators have been identified. By 9 April, police in Cologne had identified 153 suspects, 24 of whom were in investigative custody. Almost all of the suspects of the Cologne crimes were non-Germans; two-thirds of them from Morocco or Algeria. 68 suspects were asylum seekers; 18 were residing in Germany illegally, and the legal status of 47 others was unclear. Four suspects were underage, unaccompanied refugees. By July, four perpetrators had been convicted, and it was reported that half of the 120 outstanding suspects had been in Germany for less than a year, most of them from North Africa.