COLOGNE, GERMANY — The number of criminal complaints related to the New Year's Eve attacks in the German city of Cologne has risen sharply, from 379 on Saturday to 516 on Monday, CNN reported.
Thirty-two suspects have been identified so far, the majority of whom are asylum seekers or illegal immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa. According to the New Yorker, nine are Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, three Germans, one Iraqi, one Serb, and one American.
The New Yorker reported that the first suspects were mostly charged with property crimes, as evidence was quicker to gather.
In response to the attacks, at least three groups of marchers assembled on Saturday in Cologne to demonstrate against Merkel's open-door immigration policies which resulted in 1.1 million asylum seekers going to Germany in 2015.
According to authorities and witnesses, about 1,000 attackers gathered at Cologne's central train station on New Year's Eve and broke off into smaller groups who then molested and robbed women, the BBC reported.
"They were trying to hug us, kiss us, make us walk with them. We refused," one of the victims told the BBC. "One man stole my friend's bag. Another tried to get us into his 'private taxi."
"I was scared. We all were scared."
According to the Guardian, many Cologne residents accused the police of not intervening fast enough. Some have suggested that the reason why police did not take prompt action lies in the fact that they were too focused on not stoking racial tensions.
Similar attacks, although on a smaller scale, were also reported in Hamburg and Stuttgart.
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