Vienna migrant rape
A 10-year-old boy was brutally raped by an Iraqi migrant in a cubicle at The Resienbad (pictured) pool in Vienna on December 2 Flikr/Jorg

An Iraqi migrant in Vienna has admitted to the brutal rape of a10-year-old boy in a swimming pool cubicle. The attack happened at the Resienbad pool in Vienna on December 2.

The young boy was so severely brutalised that he had to undergo treatment in hospital. The shocking incident came to light after the boy, who was in tears, approached a lifeguard and reported the attack. At the time, the suspect was repeatedly jumping off the three-metre diving board in the pool.

The lifeguard called an ambulance, and police arrested the migrant at the scene. During an interrogation, he told police the assault was prompted by a 'sexual emergency' as he had not had sex in four months.

According to Kronen Zeitung, the Iraqi suspect told police he knew it was 'a mistake' and did not mean to 'scar the boy'. He told police that he knew such an act was 'forbidden in any country of the world', and he was not 'always sick', as he has a wife and a daughter in Iraq. The Iraqi, who had arrived in Austria via the Balkans in September, had been working as a taxi driver in Vienna.

The ongoing refugee crisis has seen a spike in migrant sex attacks in Europe. Last month, at least three Danish citizens reported being harassed by asylum seekers. On New Year's Eve a number of women complained about being assaulted by Afghan youths in the Swedish city of Malmö. Police in Finland also revealed they had learned of plans by migrants to sexually assault women in Helsinki.

A British teenager has alleged that she was gang-raped in a Spanish resort. The 18-year-old claimed she was dragged into a car by a group of Moroccan men while walking home from work late at night in Sabinillas, near Marbella.

Mass sexual assaults carried out by men described as of Arab or North African appearance in Cologne, Germany, has sparked debate about the government's policy of welcoming refugees from the Syrian civil war.

Police have said they must be sensitive about cases involving migrants, who have 'been through a lot', but that there would be zero-tolerance for sexual assaults.