Syrian father arrested for trying to kill children

A Syrian refugee father has been arrested for attempted murder in Germany after allegedly throwing his three children from a window at their emergency accommodation centre.

Police received an emergency call in Lohmar in the west of Germany on Monday from a man who said he saw the children falling one by one from the first-floor window of the asylum seekers centre Daily Mail reported.

Medics reached the scene to find two of the children with serious injuries and airlifted to a nearby hospital.

A third child, aged one, was returned to his mother after treatment for minor injuries after being kept overnight in hospital under observation.

The severely injured siblings – a five-year-old boy and his sister, 7, suffered head injuries and internal bleeding.

The father, a Syrian aged 35, was arrested at the scene.

A special police squad has been reportedly formed to probe the incident – one of a rising number of violent crimes among refugee families.

'The man offered no resistance during his arrest,' said Police spokesman Stefan Birk.

The accommodation centre was declared a crime scene and cordoned off with the 30 people living in the house told to move elsewhere.

The Syrian family lived in a large apartment on the first floor along with other asylum seekers.

Aid workers have reportedly complained in recent weeks that lack of space and privacy in the centres across Germany have sparked violent confrontations and even abuse of children and women.

Following on from the excesses of New Year's Eve in Cologne, when women were subjected to mass sexual assaults and robbery from hundreds of immigrant men, the city is promising zero tolerance for anyone who commits such offences again .