20-Year-Old Nigerian Girl Bathed With Acid In London

Now and Before

A 20-year-old Nigerian girl has been disfigured for life by an unidentified assailant on her way home from work in an acid attack in Dagenham, East London.

According to the Independent, Naomi Oni was walking home from her job at Victoria's Secret on December 30 when an attacker wearing a niqab (a full face veil) sprayed her face with acid. The liquid burned parts of Oni's head, arms and legs, and left her partially blind.

Oni relayed her story to The Evening Standard, hoping to gather more information about her attacker.

The young woman explained that she was talking on her phone on her walk home when someone started walking behind her. 

“Then I felt a splash on my face. It burned and I screamed out. I started running and screaming, holding my face, all the way home. I didn’t look back," she said.

Oni's relatives called an ambulance; she has been receiving care at Broomfield Hospital and Chelmsford for the past month.

She told the Standard:

I look in the mirror and it just isn’t me. I’ll never look the same again. I’ve always been outgoing and confident in my job and in my personal life, used to getting attention for the way I dress or my hair, but now I don’t want anyone looking at me.

Scotland Yard responded to the assault, pointing out that acid attacks are "extremely rare" in the U.K., the International Business Times writes.

The BBC reports that police have not made any arrests in the case and that investigators are keeping "an open mind as to the motive" of the attack.