Refugee Attempts To Burn Wife Alive, Dies In The Process

A man in a German refugee shelter attempt to set his wife on fire Thursday, police said. The man died apparently in the act of attempting to set his wife ablaze, according to English-language German news outlet the Local.

The woman, who has not been identified, was left with very serious injuries as a result of the incident. The 45-year-old man was "previously known to police," according to the Local. The attempted burning occurred in the town of Rüdesheim on Germany's Rhine river in the centrally located state of Hesse.

The woman had previously separated from her husband. After the attempted burning, she was rushed to the hospital via helicopter, according to news outlet Agence France-Presse, which put out the original news story about the incident from which the Local based its report. Part of the shelter that houses 14 people was set on fire during the incident and two others were injured.

The Daily Mail published a story detailing what it had found happened in the violent incident. It reported the man, who the paper said was a Syrian refugee, stormed into the home and doused the 31-year-old woman with lighter fluid. But the flames reportedly engulfed the man as he tried to light the woman on fire. The man died after he "inhaled a massive blast of flame that burned out his lungs," according to the Daily Mail, which cited for media reports for that cause of death. A spokesman for the Hesse state police reportedly said that the woman has been put in a burns unit of a hospital and that the injuries are life threatening.

Germany took in some 1 million asylum seekers last year and expects some 300,000 more this year. That's led to overcrowding at shelters, which has, at times, led to violence. An argument reportedly over meal times during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan sparked a June arson attack that destroyed a refugee shelter in Dusseldorf, Germany.