BERLIN (AP) — German daily paper Bild has apologized to its readers for falsely reporting about a group of migrants allegedly assaulting women on New Year's Eve in the city of Frankfurt.

The paper writes in a statement it regrets a report published earlier this month which quoted a waitress, a restaurant owner and his staff saying they witnessed "massive attacks by a mob of drunken foreigners."

Bild says neither police reports of that night nor an investigation following the paper's report could confirm any of the allegations.

The report came a year after New Year's Eve 2015, when hundreds of women reported being sexually attacked by migrants in the western city of Cologne, sparking a huge backlash against the 890,000 asylum seekers who arrived in Germany that year.