Mass sexual assaults in Germany blamed on refugees

German police reportedly believe that over 2,000 men — mostly foreigners — sexually assaulted more than 1,200 women on New Years Eve across the country.

And authorities are finally admitting it is because of the refugee crisis.

“There is a connection between the emergence of this phenomenon and the rapid migration in 2015,” said Holger Munch, the president of the German Federal Crime Police Office, according to Fox News.

But a top German police official says it likely will be impossible to find many of the perpetrators of sexual offenses committed against women on New Year’s Eve.

The daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung and broadcasters NDR and WDR reported Monday, citing a draft Federal Criminal Police Office report, that police have concluded some 1,200 women were victims of sexual offenses in German cities, largely blamed on foreigners – including 650 in Cologne. They said police officers estimate more than 2,000 men were involved, but the report says only 120 suspects were found, “about half of them foreign nationals who had only recently arrived in Germany,” The Washington Post reported.

There have been four convictions so far.

The police office wouldn’t confirm the figures. Office chief Holger Muench told the broadcasters investigations haven’t yet been concluded but “we must assume (the perpetrators) of many of these acts can’t be found.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article