Authorities in the Austrian city of Wels have enforced a curfew on young migrants following a series of sexual assaults at a local wine and beer festival in September.
Refugees living in the town of Wels are now allowed to leave their places of residence only until 8:00pm local time, the town’s mayor, Andreas Rabl confirmed.
If they break this time, they will face “serious consequences”, according to authorities.
The curfew comes after underage asylum seekers from Afghanistan sexually assaulted more than 12 local women at town festival called Welser Volksfest that was held between September 2 and September 11.
On the 4th of September, five migrants from Afghanistan were detained over sexually harassing women during the festival after eight women reported sexual assaults to police.
Following the incident, Andreas Rabl demanded “zero tolerance” for such cases in a post on his Facebook page.
“We had the problem that the female visitors of the festival being the victims of sexual assaults. 17 women in the age between 18 and 50 years were abused during the festival in Wels. Their abusers were refugees from Afghanistan and these refugees were in the age between 15 and 16,” the mayor told RT, adding that one more assailant was 23 years old.
“We have to make stricter rules for immigration in Austria and… to exercise stricter control over our borders,” Rabl told RT, adding that it makes “no sense when everybody can come here and we do not know who is coming.”