Victoria's Secret girl, 20, says Acid Attack that left her Partially Blind and Scarred for life has made her Stronger

AFRIK UPDATE



She is not angry at her attacker, but is desperate to understand why she was attacked.

Naomi Oni, 20, suffered horrific burns to her face, leg, arm and head and was left partially blinded after a person in a niqab threw acid over her as she returned to her home in Dagenham following a shift working at the Victoria's Secret store in Stratford Westfield.

Naomi, who also lost her hair and eyelashes in the attack, has undergone multiple operations and skin grafts to repair the damage to her skin, hair and eyes.

Naomi has appeared on This Morning to say she wants to know who her attacker was - and why they targeted her. 

'After the attack I asked "why me?" I work so hard, I'm a good person. I was shouting all sorts of things. 

                                            

'I started to question so many things. Am I a bad person? I don't argue, I don't like confrontation. Being an only child I shy away from it. I like to keep myself to myself in my own little corner.'

Demonstrating extraordinary bravery, Naomi told Philip Schofield on today's show that the attack had changed her. 'I feel blessed to be alive,' she says, fighting back tears.  

'I'm the same personality but stronger.

'I want to say to my attacker, "you can burn my skin but you can't burn my soul". They may have burnt my face but me as a person, they can't hurt me.'

Before the attack, Naomi says she was a 'girly' girl. 'I took three hours to get ready,' she said. 'I was bubbly, friendly. I can be shy and reserved but I was a lovely person.'

When Philip asked what she would say to her attacker if she knew he or she were watching, Naomi replied she wanted them to know the attack made her stronger. 

'I want them to realise the pain they put myself and my family through,' she said.

'I don't want them to do it to anyone else. For other girls to go through what I've gone through.'

'I don't hate them. I just want to know why they did it.'

'I hope they don't do this to anyone else,' she added. 'Whatever they tried to do they failed. Because they actually made me a stronger person. I'm actually happy.

'Whoever they are, if they can come out and reveal themselves, I would just like to know why. I don't hate them... I just want to know why.'

Naomi, who is the sole carer for her 52-year-old mother at their home in Dagenham, Essex, also revealed the horrific details of the fateful evening that changed her life forever.

 'I remember being on my way home, getting something to eat,' she says. 'I got off the bus and I was on the phone to my boyfriend. 

'I had a funny feeling - I looked behind me and saw a person in a niqab. I don't remember hearing footsteps or seeing anyone getting off the bus after me. 

'No words were spoken. There was no dialogue. I looked back and remember the person just staring at me. The eyes were cold - it was a cold stare.'

Naomi was just five minutes from her house. She says that at that moment she felt very uneasy and attempted to cross the road to distance herself from the stranger. 

But as she turned her head, she felt a splash. 'That's when I thought, someone's out to kill me,' she says. 

'I thought, "this person is not going to take my life". I just started running straight home. I knew it was acid. It feels like something is eating away at your skin. I felt it most on my scalp, more than on my face.'

She arrived at her home shouting and banging on the door, shouting 'acid, acid'.

Her family came to the door together thinking she was excited about something. 

Then when her mother opened the door, Naomi recalls everyone's faces 'just dropped'.