Acid Attack Victim Naomi Oni Talks About Forgiving Her Best Friend For Pouring Acid In Her Face...

The memory of the woman in the niqab will always haunt her. Five years on, Naomi Oni can never forget the image of that figure swathed in black, her unflinching gaze and then the sudden, searing shock of the acid as it hit her face.

‘I’d felt a presence,’ Naomi recalls. ‘I remember seeing a woman’s cold eyes piercing into mine. The rest of her face was obscured by her veil. I didn’t want to stare back, so I turned away.

‘Then I felt the splash. I took a big intake of breath then screamed. I thought I was going to be killed. My face and tongue were burning.

‘I didn’t have time to feel fear. I ran and didn’t look back. I felt it was the end that I was on the brink of death. I screamed as loud as I could to deter this woman from chasing me, and ran until I got to my front door. I could feel a scalding sensation and there was a chemical smell.

‘I hammered on my door shouting, “Acid! Acid!” My mum opened it. Her jaw dropped.

‘I was screaming: “My face is burning up.” There was steam coming off me. I was shaking with shock.’

I was left with third degree burns and doctors feared I would be permanently blind. My beautiful face was ravaged, my eyelids seared away.


With extraordinary grace and courage, I have forgiven my attacker, a young woman whom I had considered one of my closest friends, but who had been driven wild with jealousy of my good looks, popularity and bubbly personality.

‘I do forgive her. I owe myself the freedom to move on. But I still think she is a callous, vindictive person; a complete coward who betrayed me.’

The law student boyfriend I had may have ‘drifted away’, today I wisely says: ‘He was shallow. He just liked me when I was attractive.’

‘People stare,’ says Naomi. ‘But I’m learning to block them out.’

‘I thought: “I’m never going to look like myself again,” ’ she says. ‘I had no hair or eyebrows. My eyelids had been burnt off. I couldn’t recognise myself. A slab of my thigh had been grafted onto my face where my cheek had been burnt away.

‘I just couldn’t take it in. I couldn’t stop crying. I looked at this vision of my face in the hospital bathroom and just slid down the wall.

‘I didn’t feel grateful I was alive. I felt angry and thought: “What is the point in living?” I thought about taking my life.

‘But then I gathered myself. I imagined my mum’s face and thought: “I couldn’t do it to her. I couldn’t leave her.”’

‘I concluded it was a crazy person, and that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,’ she says.

‘Mum always said I was her spare pair of eyes,’ says Naomi. ‘I used to care for her.’

‘We had a family gathering at home. My godmother, uncle and several cousins had come over from Ireland, and Mum was cooking. I didn’t want to go to work and leave them all.’


‘I got off the bus, still yakking away to my boyfriend and was about to cross the road when I felt a presence,’ she recalls.

There was the figure in black robes with the disconcerting stare.

‘Next, I heard a liquid being dispersed from a container and I felt I was being bathed in something.’

‘It was indescribable,’ she says. ‘Your mind is in a million different places. Your skin is scorched, you’re scared, and at the same time you’re thinking: “Why would someone do this to me? Am I a bad person?”’

‘I drifted in and out of consciousness. I remember voices saying “corrosive substance” and “badly burned”.

‘I couldn’t see. They told my mum and uncle, but not me, that the chances of me getting any sight back were small.’

‘As my sight started to return, they covered the windows and mirrors so I couldn’t catch a glimpse of my reflection, but I saw a vague image reflected in my phone.

‘I thought: “What?” It wasn’t me. My face was burnt black, charred. I remember thinking: “No one is ever going to marry me now.”

I felt like I’d never blend in with other girls or have a normal life again. Many times I thought about taking my life.’

‘I accepted that the relationship was volatile.

‘I’d told everyone: “Please don’t cry for me. I want everyone to be happy” but Mary was the idiot who sat on the arm of my chair sobbing. I rubbed her back. She wrote in her card to me, “Happy Birthday beautiful, Love Mary.”’

‘But when I look in the mirror, I do feel sad,’ she admits. ‘I think a lot about what might have been and where I’d have been today if I hadn’t been attacked. When I look back at old photos of myself, I see an innocent girl with big dreams and aspirations, wanting to make her family proud.

‘There are still days when I’m unhappy, but I tell myself I’ll overcome it. If something catastrophic can change a life in a second, then great things can happen, too.

‘After the attack happened, I thought no man would want me. What I’ve learnt since is that the right guy will see beyond my scars. I’ve become a better judge of character now.’

She adds: ‘I also know that the man who marries me will be lucky to have me.’

from iol.co.za