A German leisure centre in Bornheim town (10 km north-west of Bonn and 20 km south of Cologne) becomes the first to ban all migrants after a schoolgirl was sexually assaulted in a public swimming pool by Syrian refugees.
Three Syrian boys were arrested over the attack at a leisure centre in Munich while Germany struggles with growing concerns about sex crimes by asylum seekers.
Finally out of frustration and growing concerns, a leisure centre in Bornheim, North Rhine-Westphalia, has now barred all migrants.
Bornheim councilor and deputy mayor Markus Schnapka said “the move followed an emergency meeting of locals where the swimming pool ban was announced. At the public meeting, I made it quite clear that it was an extremely difficult decision and it’s clear that many innocent refugees are also affected by this.’
Bornheim currently has 300 refugees who are living in accommodation and have been told that the ban will be lifted when the message has been received that women need to be respected.
In the Munich three Syrian refugees boys are alleged to have surrounded the 17-year-old girl in the pool before one of them groped her in an offence deemed rape under local law.
When the girl’s sister, 14, tried to intervene, she too was groped by the trio of teenagers, who were all aged under 15. The girls managed to flee and raise the alarm however asylum seekers were only 15 so not remanded in custody.
This news came after more than 600 German women reported being sexually assaulted by groups of mostly Arab or North African men on New Year Eve in Germany.