Eleven people were injured when they jumped out a second-story window near Paris early Saturday, thinking a naked man looking after his crying baby in the night was the devil, the local prosecutor said.

Thirteen people were in an apartment on the second floor when, around 3.00 am, one of the occupants heard his child crying, said Odile Faivre, the deputy prosecutor in Versailles. The man in question, of African origin, who was completely naked, got up to feed his child, at which point the other occupants took him for the devil. He was seriously wounded in the hand after being stabbed with a knife before he was thrown out of the apartment, via the door.

The naked man then tried to get back into the flat in the town of La Verriere, west of Paris.

Thats when the other occupants tried to escape by jumping out of the window, panicked by a fear of the devil, said Faivre.

Police questioned the would-be devil, aged 30, and another man who jumped from the window with a two-year-old girl in his arms.

Seven of those injured were taken to the hospital for emergency treatment.

Investigators were trying to clarify a number of issues surrounding the case, including whether everyone jumped voluntarily or if some were forced to do so, Faivre said.