A knifeman barricaded himself in a refugee centre in the German city of Hamburg with a pregnant woman, it has been reported.

Police were called amid reports a man with a weapon had stormed into the facility this morning and is holed up in a room.

A gunman has barricaded himself in refugee centre in the German city of Hamburg, it has been reported (file picture) </s> A refugee center in Hamburg was stormed by police on Tuesday after a man armed with a knife barricaded himself inside a room with a woman, believed to be his partner. The man was injured before being arrested, according to local reports.

The woman, who is pregnant, was released unharmed before members of Germany’s Special Deployment Commando (MEK) were deployed into the building, according to Bild.

Police have not yet disclosed a suspected motive for the incident.

The unidentified man was detained by police and reportedly taken in an ambulance to hospital for injuries sustained during the incident.

Members of the MEK are seen entering the building in one video uploaded to social media. While other photographs of the scene, posted online, show armed guards with dogs surrounding the center.

Police are cited in a report in Welt saying that the man was previously banned from entering the building but had returned repeatedly. </s> The armed and dangerous migrant took hostages and barrackaded himself into the centre in Hammersbrook, Hamburg.

A spokesperson for the migrant centre said he had trapped at least one woman inside with him and that was believed to be his pregnant partner.

Armed officers stormed the building with police dogs and what appeared to be heavy duty weapons.

German police said they believed the incident was taking place due to "a dispute over accommodation" and has now been resolved. </s> Image copyright AFP/Getty Images

A 50-year-old German man has been killed and six people injured in a knife attack in a Hamburg supermarket.

Police said the suspect was 26 years old and born in the United Arab Emirates. They said he acted alone and he was overpowered by passersby.

Mayor Olaf Scholz said the attack was motivated by "hate" but did not say it was a terror attack.

There are unconfirmed reports that the man shouted "Allahu akhbar", Arabic for "God is great" while attacking people.

Police said they were still seeking to confirm his current nationality. Mr Sholz said he was a failed asylum seeker.

The man attacked customers in the supermarket at random, ran outside and was chased by customers and by people outside the shop. They brought him to the ground before he was detained by plain-clothes police officers.

Mobile phone footage on German media that is purportedly of the attack's aftermath shows several people chasing a man and throwing chairs at him.

A 50-year-old woman and four men aged between 19 and 64 were stabbed, while a 35-year-old man was injured while helping overcome the suspect.

The attack happened in the Barmbek region in the north of the city in a branch of Edeka, Germany's largest supermarket chain.

Police say the man's weapon may have looked like a machete but they are, for now, assuming it was a kitchen knife.

One eyewitness made a gesture about 50cm (20 in) long when asked on German TV how big the knife was.

Asked whether this was a terror attack, a police official told the BBC: "We are at an early stage of the investigation... At the moment we can't rule anything out. We are investigating all avenues."

Speculation in German media said the attack may have been part of a robbery attempt but police said that that motive could not be confirmed.

One eyewitness, who ran from the scene into a nearby shop as the situation unfolded, told German broadcaster NTV that it seemed "hectic and confused, not like a properly planned attack". </s> Parts of Frankfurt main station where the incident occurred were closed off by police.

Parts of Frankfurt main station where the incident occurred were closed off by police.

AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD boy died when a man pushed him and his mother in front of a train in Germany’s Frankfurt railway station, police said.

The suspect, a 40-year-old man of African origin who was unrelated to the victims, ran off but was overpowered by passers-by and detained by police.

The woman, who is also 40, was being treated in hospital after narrowly escaping from the tracks as an arriving ICE highspeed train ran over the child.

Police said they had opened a murder inquiry and were questioning the suspect for a possible motive.

“The boy and his mother were pushed in front of an arriving train. The mother was able to save herself,” a police spokeswoman said.

Passers-by ran after the fleeing man who, reports said, had tried but failed to push a third person onto the tracks, and who was arrested near the station.

The suspect is believed to be Eritrean, said Hesse state interior minister Peter Beuth.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer broke off his summer holiday because of the killing, saying he planned to meet with the heads of major security authorities.

“The background to this heinous crime is still unclear,” he said.

“It is now the task of the investigating authorities to clear it up as quickly and comprehensively as possible. The perpetrator will be held responsible for the crime by all legal means.”

The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party quickly linked the case to a mass influx of migrants and refugees in recent years.

“The hideousness of this act can hardly be surpassed,” wrote the party’s Alice Weidel on Twitter, demanding that the government “finally start to protect the citizens of this country”.

A similar attack took place 10 days earlier when a 34-year-old woman was killed after being pushed in front of a train by a man in Voerde, near Duisburg. </s> One person was killed and several injured on Friday when a man wielding a large knife stormed a supermarket in the German city of Hamburg, allegedly trying to rob the supermarket, according to initial police reports. Witnesses reported that the attacker shouted “Allahu Akbar” — ‘Allah is great’ in Arabic — during the wild attack.

The immediate vicinity of the store in the neighborhood of Barmbek district, have been cordoned off and closed to traffic on a large radio, police sources said on Twitter.

According to the first information, the attacker indiscriminately slashed at those inside the supermarket, injuring several people and stabbing one person, who died at the scene, police said.

Update: The attacker was named as Ahmed al H., a 26-year-old Arab-born refugee who had been monitored by the police for his radical Islamist ideology and was awaiting deportation.
German police storm a refugee center in Hamburg after a knife-wielding man barricades himself in a room with a pregnant woman believed to be his partner. The man was injured before he was arrested.