About 90 women have reported being robbed, threatened or sexually molested at New Year celebrations outside Cologne’s cathedral.

The police said the attackers were young, mostly drunk, men, describing the attacks as ‘a new dimension in crime’, as Reuters reports.

Cologne police chief Wolfgang Albers said that officers described the men as looking as if they were from “the Arab or North African region” and between 18 and 35 years old adding that “We have one complaint that represents a rape,”.

About 1,000 drunk and aggressive young men were involved who appeared outside the cathedral suddenly and started shooting fireworks. Then, they were divided into smaller groups and started molesting the women, according to witnesses.

A British woman visiting Cologne said fireworks had been thrown at her group by men who spoke neither German nor English. “They were trying to hug us, kiss us. One man stole my friend’s bag,” she told the BBC. “Another tried to get us into his ‘private taxi’. I’ve been in scary and even life-threatening situations and I’ve never experienced anything like that.”

Integration commissioner Aydan Ozoguz warned against putting foreigners and refugees under “blanket suspicion”.

Similar attacks were recorded in other cities of Germany. In Hamburg several women told police that gangs of men had molested and robbed them on New Year’s Eve on a street which was known for its night life, while similar attacks were reported in Stuttgart.