Four US students are sprayed with acid in attack at France train station
A ‘mentally unstable’ woman has been taken into custody, and the attack in Marseille is not believed to be terrorism
Authorities say a 41-year-old woman was arrested after spraying acid on four American students Sunday morning at a train station in Marseille, a city in southern France.
The victims, four women in their 20s, were taken to hospital. Two had facial injuries, one of whom possibly suffered an eye injury, a spokeswoman for the Marseille prosecutor’s office told Associated Press. The other two were in shock.
Investigators are not considering the attack a terrorist act, though that could not be ruled out in the early stages of the investigation. The spokeswoman said the suspect did not make extremist threats.
The attack happened at about 11am at the Saint Charles train station. Fourteen firefighters in four rescue vehicles responded to the train station, according to media reports. Authorities are not releasing the identities of the victims and the suspect. who is in custody.
La Provence, a newspaper in Marseille, reported that police described the woman as mentally unstable and that she remained at the scene to show officers pictures of herself with burns.
Boston College, a private Jesuit university in Massachusetts, said in a statement Sunday that the four students were all juniors studying abroad, three of them at the college’s Paris programme.