Austria investigates series of New Year's sexual assaults in Innsbruck

Austrian police are investigating an unprecedented number of sexual assaults carried out by a group of men on New Year's Eve in the western city of Innsbruck, an official said Wednesday.

Some 18 women reported having been groped by up to 10 individuals on Innsbruck's main square where around 25,000 had gathered welcome the new year, senior police official Ernst Kranebitter said.

"We've not had anything like this happen here before," Kranebitter told AFP news agency.

"They were dancing around the victims and then suddenly grabbed their breast or stuck their hands between their legs. That's what made it hard for others to notice what was going on – it all happened amid festivities."

The suspects have been described as being in their late teens, Kranebitter said.

In neighboring Germany last year, hundreds of women were sexually assaulted and robbed at New Year's celebrations in Cologne and suspects were mainly of North African and Arab appearance. Police there said they prevented a repeat of this year by screening 650 mostly North African men on the night.

According to Reuters news agency, witnesses in Innsbruck said the New Year's assailants were in their 20s or 30s and had dark complexions, but their nationality was not clear.

"It has definitely been proven that they are foreign," the spokesman for the police in the western province of Tyrol said, adding witnesses reported they spoke English or poor German. "We are investigating. We have videos of poor quality but we are trying to make the best of them."

The assaults happened despite police in Vienna having distributed 6,000 pocket alarms on New Year's Eve last week to help prevent attacks.

Police presence had been boosted across Austria, including in Innsbruck, for the end-of-year festivities in the wake of a terror attack in neighbouring Germany in early December.