Acid attacks have become a horrific reality of the migrant-heavy neighborhoods of major cities in Western Europe, but in Prince George’s County, Maryland?

A young Maryland woman has been left badly burned — likely scarred for life — and in a medically induced coma after her male migrant housemate threw acid in her face on Saturday night.

The suspect is a 28-year-old Ethiopian migrant named Bekre Abdela. He has been charged with attempted murder after police said he threw sulfuric acid in his female roommate’s face, causing first-degree burns to her face and second-degree burns on her neck and upper body.

Abdela has been charged with attempted first- and second-degree murder, first- and second-degree assault and reckless endangerment.

On his Facebook page, Abdela says he was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, that he graduated from high school and college in Ethiopia, where he obtained a degree from Dire Dawa University as a chemical engineer. He listed his home as Arlington, Virginia, but court documents say he is a resident of Hyattsville, Maryland. It is not clear why he recently migrated to the U.S. and police did not release his immigration status.

Police haven’t released a motive. The obvious question is, was this a case of honor violence? We may never find out the answer to that question unless the case goes to trial and the nature of his relationship with his roommate is revealed. Her identity as a victim has been kept confidential thus far.

None of the mainstream media outlets that reported the story, including the New York Daily News and WTOP in Washington, D.C., included the information from Abdela’s Facebook page that he is an immigrant from Ethiopia, even though they included other information from his Facebook account, such as his “background in chemical engineering.”

The local media reports described him only as a “Maryland man.”

According to WTOP, police said they were called to a house on the East-West Highway just east of New Hampshire Avenue at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday and found a woman suffering from what looked to be chemical burns. She was diagnosed with first-degree burns on her face and second- and third-degree burns on her upper body.

She told the police that “my roommate threw acid on my face” and referred to her attacker as “Bekre,” the documents said. She was then taken to a hospital and placed in a medically induced coma; she remains in critical condition.

Read here about the exponential growth in acid attacks in the U.K., where thousands have been burned, maimed or killed in such attacks in the last five years. Police say acid and bleach are used as weapons by gangs and other thugs in place of guns, which are hard to get and closely monitored in the U.K.

Abdela wasn’t at the house when police responded, but investigators reported finding a bottle of 93-percent sulfuric acid in his bedroom, as well as several boxes of handgun ammunition.

Detectives said they found a trail of blood and acid throughout the house, connecting Abdela’s bedroom to the victim’s.

The solution is used to dissolve metals such as silver and iron.

Abdela is being held without bond. Police said he has “admitted his involvement in the attack.”

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Leo Hohmann is a veteran journalist and author of the 2017 book “Stealth Invasion: Muslim Conquest through Immigration and Resettlement Jihad.” If you appreciate this type of original, fact-based reporting on topics others are afraid to investigate, please consider a donation of any size to this website.





