Jessica Durando, USA TODAY

More than 1,200 women were sexually assaulted in German cities on New Year's Eve, including more than 600 in Cologne and about 400 in Hamburg — far more than initially reported, according to German news media.

Authorities believe 2,000 men were involved in the assaults, and 120 suspects — many of them foreigners — have been identified, The Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reported Sunday, based on a leaked police document.

In January, at least 90 women filed police reports alleging they were sexually assaulted, including one report of rape, and police initially identified up to 1,000 men as suspects.

Four men have been convicted of crimes related to the New Year's Eve assaults, and more trials are underway.

A Cologne court sentenced two men Thursday, an Iraqi and an Algerian, who were given suspended one-year sentences, according to The Washington Post. 

Holger Münch, president of the German Federal Crime Police Office, said the suspects of the New Year's Eve assaults "have been in Germany less than one year."

"There is a connection between the emergence of this phenomenon and the rapid migration in 2015," Münch told Sueddeutsche Zeitung. Many suspects came to Germany from North African countries, according to the Federal Criminal Police Agency document.

Münch also said many of the New Year's Eve suspects will never be convicted. He said there aren't many closed-circuit cameras in major cities, making it difficult to identify perpetrators.

"We have to presume that many of those crimes will never be fully investigated," he said.

Last week, Germany's Parliament passed a sexual-assault law that will make it easier for victims to file criminal complaints, only needing to say they rejected their attacker with a clear "no." Before the new law, victims had to show they physically resisted an attack before charges could be filed.

The large-scale assaults on New Year's Eve unnerved Germany, a country that prides itself on a strict sense of public order, from crosswalks to its budget surplus. Police in Cologne came under heavy criticism for failing to prevent the assaults that some opposition politicians have likened to "state failure."

The assaults also intensified pressure on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's open-door policy toward asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in countries that include Syria, Iraq and Eritrea. Germany last year admitted more than 1 million refugees and other migrants seeking better economic opportunities.

Contributing: Kim Hjelmgaard 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/07/11/cologne-germany-sexual-assaults/86939142