The mother of the two-year-old had gone to police on Monday evening to report her husband for threatening her, a police spokesperson said.

Officers then accompanied the woman to the home of her family, who come from Pakistan. The police intended to tell her husband that he was no longer allowed to remain on the premises.

Instead they found the body of the couple's two-year-old daughter, with her throat slit. The father meanwhile was no longer there.

Medical teams were called in to treat the mother, who suffered an immediate shock. The couple's six-year-old son also had to be cared for.

Fatma Keklik, a neighbour of the family in the Neugraben-Fischbeck district, described the man as “highly aggressive.”

“It’s horrible, sad,” she said. “It is crazy. I could use real swear words right now.”

She reported that the police had often come to the house after the couple had had arguments, and child welfare authorities had also been there.

Keklik said that the woman had clearly been banned from talking to any of the neighbours and wasn’t even allowed to say hello.

Saliha Gajiran, a woman who works in a nearby bakery, said that “we are really worried.”

She described police patrols crawling through the area and said she had had her husband pick her up from work as a precaution.