In the midst of a study abroad trip in France, four Boston students came in contact with a situation they never thought would become a reality.
At 11 a.m. this past Sunday morning, four students, all juniors at Boston College, were attacked outside a train station in Marseille, France by a 41-year-old woman with a history of psychiatric problems.
Marseille police told ABC News that the incident was not that of a terrorist.
The students were outside the train station when the woman allegedly sprayed acid in their faces. All four of them were okay, however, they were taken to a local hospital to be treated and released.
The woman supposedly has a strong mental health background, and Boston College students Michelle Krug and Courtney Siverling did not want to disregard that. In Krug’s recent Facebook post, she says, “Please consider praying for our attacker so that she may receive the help she needs and deserves. Mental illness is not a choice and should not be villainized”.
ABC News also found in the local newspaper, La Provence, that “the woman told police she ‘went crazy’ and was not targeting anyone in particular. She also showed officers pictures of herself with burns and claimed she had been a victim of an acid attack, and wanted to replicate what others had suffered, the newspaper reported.”
The woman wanted to recreate the pain and suffering she went through by inflicting the similar pain upon someone else.
Despite the woman’s mental health problems, the students at Boston College did not forget to recognize that she cannot help her mental illness. They all want to pray, and encourage others to pray, for the well-being of the attacker, and that she is able to find a way to get the necessary help she needs.