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Heavily armed police arrived at the scene and discovered one man was already dead and a woman was critically injured – she has been airlifted to hospital.

The shooter, understood to be a 27-year-old Turkish man, is believed to have fired indiscriminately into the bustling hairdressers' shop in Dueren, Germany.

Witnesses report the gunman entered the salon, shouted at a woman and then opened fire, leading regional police spokesperson Ulrich Braun to say: "This may be a crime of passions."

German police say the attacker fled the scene and holed himself up in a nearby apartment, taking at least one person hostage.