Italian police are investigating multiple New Year’s Eve sex attacks on women in central Milan reminiscent of the horrifying assaults in Cologne in 2016.
The investigation was launched on January 7 after one of the attacked women spoke to Belgian media and described being surrounded by dozens of men who allegedly groped her.
Laura Barbier, 20, a student from Liege, in Belgium, had travelled to Milan, Italy, with five friends aged 20 and 21 to celebrate the New Year.
The group of four young women and two men watched the fireworks on the Piazza del Duomo outside Milan’s cathedral, where men wearing balaclavas were filmed causing chaotic scenes by shooting fireworks into the crowd on the same night.
‘Young people set off fireworks into the crowd, to create a crowd movement. It was very dangerous, we had a feeling of unease, as if there was going to be an attack,’ Laura told Belgian broadcaster RTL.
Feeling unsafe, Laura said she and her friends tried to leave the square, but they were stopped by a mob of 30 to 40 men shouting shouting ‘vaffanculo Italia’ (‘f*** off Italy’) and ‘polizia di merda’ (‘s*** police’) who surrounded them.
‘That’s when we were touched on our bodies, on our clothes and some of us, including myself, inside our clothes,’ Laura said.
‘Three out of us four girls were sexually assaulted. A friend had her breasts groped and her buttocks touched. [The men] put their hands in my pants. It went very far.’
Laura Barbier (right), 20, a student from Liege, in Belgium, had travelled to Milan, Italy , with five friends aged between 20 and 21 to celebrate the New Year
!['Three out of us four girls were sexually assaulted. A friend had her breasts groped and her buttocks touched. [The men] put their hands in my pants. It went very far,' Laura (pictured) told Belgian broadcaster RTL](https://i0.wp.com/i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/01/08/18/93879873-14263585-image-a-2_1736360043525.jpg?resize=634%2C357&ssl=1)
‘Three out of us four girls were sexually assaulted. A friend had her breasts groped and her buttocks touched. [The men] put their hands in my pants. It went very far,’ Laura (pictured) told Belgian broadcaster RTL
While her two male friends tried to defend them, there was nothing they could do as the mob of men aged between 20 and 40 stood so close it was ‘impossible’ to move, Laura said.
She added that even hitting and kicking the attackers, as well as shouting for help, did not work. ‘We were powerless,’ she said.
Laura said she was finally saved by an Italian man whose wife had also been attacked.
But when Laura and her friends went to the local police to report the sex attacks, they were told that ‘it would be useless’ before being sent away, the Belgian student claims.
Laura, who has since been receiving psychological counselling over her ordeal at a hospital back in Belgium, said she wanted to speak up to stop similar attacks from happening to other young women.
She told RTL: ‘I can’t let this happen like this. I thought it only happened in the movies. I can’t keep quiet.’
The attack has been compared to the scenes from New Year’s Eve in Cologne at the end of 2015 when hundreds of women were sexually assaulted, harassed, and robbed during celebrations near the city’s main train station and iconic cathedral.
The group of four young women and two men watched the fireworks on the Piazza del Duomo outside Milan’s cathedral, where men wearing balaclavas were filmed causing chaotic scenes by shooting fireworks into the crowd on the same night
Footage from New Year’s Eve of the Piazza del Duomo shows chaotic scenes
The situation caused particular outrage after Cologne police insisted that there had been no significant problems, before the real scale of the attacks was revealed in local media reports.
Over 1,200 criminal complaints were filed, including over 500 allegations of sexual assault.
The attacks in Germany were reportedly carried out by large groups of men described as predominantly of North African and Arab descent.
In Milan, the city’s Piazza del Duomo has previously been the scene of sexual assaults on New Year’s Eve in 2021.
Police said at the time that they had identified 15 young men and three boys, aged 15 to 21, who were described as foreigners or Italians of North-African origin.
Through surveillance images, witness testimony and social media tracking, police were able to piece together ‘three different episodes of violence’ committed against nine young women that night, they said.
