We have previously reported on the attack against a 19-year-old Italian girl near Milan's famed Duomo cathedral by some 30 men described as "foreigners" or "Arabs" on New Year's Eve. Our reports can be read here and here.
More and more it appears that other females were also attacked in the same area, and that what occurred on New Year's Eve in Milan is increasingly resembling what occurred at the area around the Cologne cathedral (Dom) on New Year's Eve 2015-16 in Germany though certainly not on that grand a scale.
The below article today in Il Giornale indicates (though not confirmed) that many of the attackers are believed to be Egyptian. The article is translated by Fousesquawk. We hope to have a sub-titled video shortly.
"They all spoke in Arabic". Chats about the nightmare are popping up
8 January 2022-11:20
The victims recall the phrases in Arabic but from social media other details emerge: The attackers are reportedly all Egyptians and regular visitors in the area.
Francesca Galici
New details of the sexual harassment in Milan on New Year's Eve continue to emerge. The most detailed account was given to Ansa (News) by one of two German girls who were attacked in Duomo Square: " We tried to push them off, my friend hit them and slapped them, but they laughed and continued to sexually harass us, I had 15 hands on me". The two students gave their report to the police at Mannheim, the German city where they live, and they did not skimp on accusations at the Italian police: "The police saw us and did nothing. I don't know how to say it because it was shocking because they couldn't have not seen us".
The two young students had arrived in Milan on 31 December. They had chosen Milan to spend New Year's Eve without imagining that it would end in a nightmare like this. On the web, there is circulating a clip of a few seconds relative to that episode which, as stated by one of the girls, "is only the final part of an attack that lasted 10 minutes". The police are reconstructing the facts using the videos from the security cameras, those amateur, and the statements of those who were in that part of Duomo Square at that moment.
But the accounts of the victims are the ones from which emerge the most details at the moment: "We were surrounded by a group of people. They all spoke in Arabic, they pushed us, and at a certain moment, I fell on the ground, and they continued to put their hands on us". The students tried to escape and free themselves from the grip of the herd, but, they explain, "we could not escape, we were blocked. We were crying and screaming for help, but nobody helped us. We had thirty people around who touched us everywhere, nobody was speaking Italian, and unfortunately, nobody spoke English when we managed to get away from there."
The municipality and institutions owe a convincing explanation for what happened in the most important square of the city, the symbol of Milan around the world. Meanwhile, in the pages dedicated to the city, those in which local facts about Milan are told, various testimonies arrive. There are those who suffered the same attack reported by the German girls and those, on the other hand, who claim to know who the attackers of New Year's Eve were.
From Instagram (Hat tip Milanobelladadio)
"I spoke with a Tunisian friend of mine. He stated that they are mostly Egyptians in the video, we cannot recognize the faces well, we have taken advantage of the Telegram photos, but they are people who can be found in Mercanti Square and the Duomo area. Once they left by the steps, those of the Museum of 900," reads one very detailed message. The same then furnishes more information: "Anyway, they always hang out in the Duomo area, even on the walls of the cathedral, but mostly in Mercanti Square. They are almost always there, usually in the afternoon and especially on the weekends. They bother all the girls who pass by, follow them, making comments. And if you try to respond, they surround you, and, if possible, attack you."
Whoever wrote that message seems to know them, (and) says they "are almost always armed with knives" and that since they drink, "they always have the bottle ready to break". If certain information is known to those who appear to be ordinary citizens of Milan or those who frequent the city, it should be known as well to the institutions. (Yet), on the other hand, these people are free to continue to break the law and to sully the image of the city. It is a shame that Marino Palace (City Hall) is only now aware that Milan is not a safe city because, perhaps, they would have been able to intervene to prevent certain episodes.
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