A woman journalist was groped when she was reporting live at Cologne's Carnival in Germany, while over 20 cases of sexual assault cases were reported from the first day of the event on Thursday.
The reports of sexual assaults, including one on live camera, come just weeks after the German city registered over a hundred cases of sexual assault on women during New Year's Eve.
Belgian journalist Esmeralda Labye, who was reporting from Cologne on Thursday, said she felt a "hand on her breast" even as she was recording her byte on camera from the Cologne Carnival, according to The Local.
"My piece to camera was chaotic, people showing middle fingers, a man who was having fun miming a sex act behind me and above all the hand placed on my breast," the reporter said. Cologne's mayor's office apologised to Labye, the news site reported.
The first night of the Cologne Carnival, which sees hundreds of revellers come out on the streets to party, saw 22 cases of sexual assaults, and the police have detained 190 people so far, reports said.
According to The Local, a 17-year-old asylum seeker was arrested for allegedly raping a woman on Friday.
Cologne was the centre of debate in Germany after over 100 women told police that they had been sexually assaulted by groups of men on New Year's Eve, claiming that many of them were ''North African" or "Middle Eastern'' in appearance. Several asylum seekers were among the suspects arrested.
Increasing cases of sexual assault in Germany have led to a raging debate on German Chancellor Angela Merkel's 'open door' policy that saw more than one million asylum seekers enter the country in 2015.
On Thursday, two Algerians who were asylum seekers in Germany were arrested on suspicion of having links with the Islamic State group.
