Our ten-minute rape nightmare: Other victims say gang grabbed their arms while others assaulted them in terrifying ordeal alongside Brit who ‘fought for her life’ to escape mass sex attack in Italy

A student victim of the New Year’s Eve mass sexual assault in Milan has described how she and friends were attacked by a mob who pinned their hands back while other men grabbed them during the harrowing affair that lasted ten minutes.

Laura Barbier, one of six Belgians visiting the Piazza del Duomo to watch the fireworks with British victims, recalled the ‘nightmare’ of having men grabbing at them while others assaulted them under their clothes.

She told Belgian outlet Sudinfo how three of the four female students were sexually assaulted, one groped on the breasts and buttocks.

They ‘put their hands in my pants’, the 20-year-old claimed. ‘It went very far… There were so many people around us that we couldn’t move.’

Italian prosecutors have now opened an investigation into the allegations of group sexual violence, compiling a file ‘on the basis of the numerous press articles collected’ about the apparently coordinated attack.

It comes as one British student with the group bravely recounted to MailOnline how she was assaulted by an ‘organised’ group of men she did not know as they brought the new year in.

Imogen – who we have identified by just her first name – shared a horrifying testimony of how she was ‘grabbed and pulled back’ by strangers in the crowd, who she said tried to sexually assault her with their hands as another allegedly mentioned rape.

She would heroically try to save another British woman allegedly being sexually assaulted by the mob, allowing the other victim to break free before Imogen fought off the men herself in self-defence.

The 19-year-old told how police initially brushed off their complaints until she showed how she was bleeding from struggling against her attackers. They then consoled her and told her it was a ‘known problem’, claiming the attackers were Bangladeshi men.

Laura Barbier (right), 20, a student from Liege, in Belgium, had travelled to Milan, Italy, with five friends aged between 20 and 21 to celebrate the New Year. They joined a British group who also alleged they were attacked by a group of men aged between 20 and 40

Footage from New Year’s Eve of the Piazza del Duomo shows chaotic scenes

Hero Brit Imogen (left, pictured with friends) tried to save another British woman being sexually assaulted by a mob of attackers while being attacked herself

Investigators in Italy are still looking to speak to the Belgian victims to progress their case, and have been allowed to review CCTV footage.

Imogen, the British victim, told MailOnline that she is currently in the process of filing a legal complaint via the Italian embassy in England, and that investigators are currently speaking to other women to understand the full ‘scale’ of the attack.

She said that there was no police presence at the scene when they arrived and no designated area from which fireworks would be set off.

Video footage from the scene showed how men in balaclavas were firing their own fireworks into the crowd around the time of the attacks.

Laura’s testimony echoed Imogen’s description of how their attackers grabbed members of the group and held them while some touched them under their clothes.

‘We were touched on our bodies, on our clothes and some of us, including myself, inside our clothes,’ Laura told Sudinfo.

She said that they managed to get under their clothes despite them wearing jackets and scarves.

Imogen said she was wearing a long dress, a long coat and a scarf when she was attacked.

The heartbreaking testimonies have provoked outrage in Italy, Belgium and the United Kingdom, with Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni now seeking answers for the victims.

Italian media reports that Meloni has personally contacted the prefecture of Milan requesting step-by-step updates on the investigations.

‘Three out of us four girls were sexually assaulted. A friend had her breasts groped and her buttocks touched. [The men] put their hands in my pants. It went very far,’ Laura (pictured) told Belgian broadcaster RTL

The group of students watched the fireworks on the Piazza del Duomo outside Milan’s cathedral, where men wearing balaclavas were filmed causing chaotic scenes by shooting fireworks into the crowd on the same night

British victim Imogen, who has since returned to her studies in the United Kingdom, shared her testimony of the attack with MailOnline and Sudinfo last week.

She said the group began feeling uncomfortable when they started receiving unwanted attention from men in the crowd, and claimed a man tried to grope her and tugged at her dress as she passed through the plaza.

As the countdown for midnight begun, the boys in the group turned to record the New Year celebrations.

Imogen said at that moment, she was ‘instantly grabbed from behind and pulled away from my friends’.

‘They held my arms and hands, so I couldn’t fight back, whilst I was surrounded by a group in what appeared to be an organised attack. Multiple men, at once, began to grope me, whilst another attempted to pull up my dress.

‘As I panicked, and fought for freedom, it became apparent that they enjoyed my distress and this only excited my attackers.’

Imogen claims another man tried to sexually assault her, and that she heard one of the men mention rape.

‘This is when my fight turned into one for survival,’ she said.

She described the ‘blur’ as she managed to get her arms free and screamed before being found by friends.

She alleged that the men threw an unknown liquid over them, stinging her eyes and nose, and leaving them struggling to breathe.

‘We began to blindly fight our way through the crowd as they released flares and threw firecrackers at us, in an attempt to injure us,’ she claimed.

When they eventually managed to escape, the attackers pursued the group and allegedly started fighting the men.

Imogen said she was grabbed again and separated from the group, where she heard another English woman beside her also being held and sexually assaulted by a group.

The brave teenager tried to intervene, allowing the woman to break free. 

She said that when she finally found the police, they told her at first that there was ‘nothing they could do’.

Their attitude changed, she said, when she showed them her cuts from the attack.

Video shows flares lit in the crowds as people gathered to celebrate the New Year in Milan

Police at the cathedral in Milan on December 31. Authorities were said to have designated certain areas as ‘red zones’ to increase security during the New Year’s Eve celebrations

Investigators are currently looking into what happened in Milan on New Year’s Eve.

The Italian press has shared conflicting – and speculative – reports about the background and motive of the attackers.

Imogen said she thought it ‘disgusting that people would use our traumatic story to push a political agenda’.

‘I want people to understand that many of the descriptions I have read are wholly untrue.

‘I will not allow my sexual attack to become an opportunity to divide people – it is a moment to unite women, and the people of Italy, in outrage that this was allowed to happen during a joyful celebration.’

Italian news agency ANSA reported that the men had been identified only as being second-generation North African men, against claims made by Italian police on the scene.

‘It is a total, blatant lie, to claim that our group were attacked by men holding Palestinian flags,’ Imogen told Sudinfo. 

‘I am so upset after reading many articles that claim it was a matter of religion, indirectly blaming Islam, whilst claiming our attack was “Taharrush Gamea”,’ Imogen said.

‘The evil we experienced that night was the absolute absence of religion. Those men had no motive but to take advantage of innocent women, knowing they would escape without suffering the consequences.’