Berlin Police shoot dead father at refugee centre as he attacks man he accused of abusing daughter

Berlin police shot dead a father at a refugee home as he attempted to attack a man he accused of sexually abusing his daughter.

Police arrested a 27-year-old man at a refugee centre in the Moabit area of the city on Tuesday evening accused of sexually abusing an 8-year-old girl.

The girl's 29-year-old father reportedly charged at the handcuffed suspect with a knife as he was being arrested and put in a police car, and officers shot him, DPA reported. The father died hours later at a hospital.

Witnesses said the father shouted "You will not survive this" as he charged at the alleged abuser.

An investigation into the shooting will be carried out by Berlin's homicide division.

Neither the names of the man arrested nor the man killed have been released by police. Unconfirmed reports claim the alleged abuser is Pakistani.

In July, a member of the left wing Die Linke party told German parliament that there has been 128 allegations of children being sexually abused at refugee centres in the country in the first quarter of 2016.

A four-year-old child was allegedly raped by an Afghan man at a refugee centre in Hamburg in March, a court in Kiel recently heard.

In 2015, more than a million refugees and immigrants entered Germany, many fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa.