Only some 5,6 million people turned up in Munich for the 2016 Oktoberfest, down from almost 6 million the previous year.
But despite the low attendance, the number of sexual crimes reported have surged dramatically.
After the world’s most famous beer festival ended on Monday amid heightened security due to recent acts of terror, sex crimes were up nearly 50 percent.
The festival had 400,000 less visitors than two years ago. It’s the lowest number since just after the September 11th 2001 terror attacks, says the German newspaper FAZ.
For the first time in the festival’s 200-year history there were entrance checks to get into the grounds and the overall amount of crime was down 15 percent on last year, but there were 31 reports of sexual crimes compared to 21 in 2015.
Some 215 women reported to security checkpoints for help this year compared to 197 last year. Eighteen women said they had suffered violent attacks.
Migrant crime in Germany is particulary high, with migrants committing around 70,000 crimes within the first three months of 2016.
The most notorious sex crimes were reported on New Year’s Eve in the German city of Cologne, in which gangs of mainly North African migrants committed mass sexual offences against German women.
Police received over 1,500 complaints of rape, sexual assault, mugging and pickpocketing. The local government then took six months to admit the majority of perpetrators were recently arrived migrants.
Some 70 per cent of the perpetrators had been in Germany for less than a year, despite repeated denial by authorities.
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