The acid did not just burn her skin. It tried to erase her life.
The acid did not just burn her skin. It tried to erase her life.
On March 17, 2021, 21 year old pre med student Nafiah Ikram stepped out of her car after a late shift, thinking about nothing more than getting home.
A man stood nearby.
Silent.
Watching.
Within seconds, he was right in front of her.
Then the acid hit.
The pain was instant. Overwhelming. As Nafiah screamed, the acid poured into her mouth and down her throat, burning her from the inside out. Her skin began to melt as she ran, blind with pain, desperate to survive.
By the time paramedics arrived, her face was so badly burned they could not even start an IV. They poured saline directly onto her open wounds while she drifted in and out of consciousness.
At the hospital, the nightmare continued.
Her contact lens had fused to her eye. Doctors had to pry it out with metal forceps before they could wash the acid away. Her nose and upper lip began fusing together, forcing surgeons to separate them before infection set in.
She could not breathe properly.
She could not close her eye.
She could not recognize the face in the mirror.
For weeks, Nafiah lived trapped inside a body she did not recognize. Skin hardened, peeled, cracked. Every movement hurt. Every breath burned. And still, she had no answers. No name. No reason.
But something inside her refused to break.
She walked back through her own front door.
She faced surgery after surgery.
Endured pain most people cannot imagine.
Not because she had to.
But because she chose to live.
Today, Nafiah tells her story not for pity, but as a warning. Acid attacks do not just scar skin. They attempt to destroy identity, confidence, and safety itself.
Her attackers tried to silence her.
Instead, she became a voice.
“They tried to scar my life forever. But I choose to live.”

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