Italian police arrested a man armed with a box-cutting knife who barricaded himself into a day-care center in Southern Italy on Wednesday with 11 children and a teacher.

The drama began just after 9:00 a.m. when the man burst into the Girotondo nursery in the southern Italy city of Reggio Calabria.

"We are dealing with a situation where a man armed with a small knife is inside the nursery holding around ten children and a teacher hostage. The man is the father of a boy in the class and we are in the process of trying to negotiate with him. We have asked family members to the scene and we have closed off the area. He has demanded money and he has also asked to speak to a local TV crew at this point we have not agreed to anything,” a Reggio Calabria police spokesman said quoted by the Telegraph.co.uk.

RAI state television showed footage from inside the classroom during the siege. The man was waving the box cutter and shouting as children were crying terrified around him.

The man’s relatives, including his father, brother, uncle and a cousin, had come to the scene and were taking turns speaking with him, Renato Cortese, the top police officials at the scene said, according to the Associated Press.

The Sky TG 24 channel said the 35-year-old man is the father of one of the children and has complained of not seeing enough of his child since separating from the mother.

The man released the children and their teacher after a five-hour ordeal and police apprehended him without a struggle. All children and their teacher were unhurt.