A 27-year-old man at a Berlin refugee home was accused of sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl. Witnesses said that the man lured the girl to a park near the home and then sexually abused her there.

Police responded to the report and arrested the man for sexual abuse. But after officers had handcuffed the suspect and were bringing him into a patrol car, a 29-year-old man – believed to be the girl’s father – ran at the suspect with a knife.

Witnesses said the 29-year-old yelled: “You will not survive this”.

Police said they shot at the father in order to prevent an attack. The 29-year-old died due to his gunshot wounds hours later at a hospital.

It is not clear how many of the officers shot at the man, and this will be clarified during an investigation into the use of firearms, which is standard procedure when a police officer uses their gun against someone in Germany.

Last year, ten people were killed by police in total across Germany, according to a recent media report. This was an increase on 2014 when seven people were killed.

A member of Die Linke (Left Party) in the German parliament revealed over the summer that there had been 128 cases of children being sexually abused at refugee homes across Germany in the first quarter of this year, according to Tagesspiegel. The children were reportedly abused by employees working at the refugee facilities, including security guards, as well as by people living there.

Politicians and NGOs like Save the Children have called for better protections for refugee children, including hiring more personnel trained in child protection issues, providing more gender-segregated showers, and organizing child care in better protected spaces.