I survived an acid attack, and I can take whatever else life throws at me

“As the acid ate into my skin, I felt the agony. My whole body was in pain. I was burning. I was going crazy with pain. I was screaming, screaming, screaming!” Benta Akinyi narrates the ordeal that would scar her both physically and emotionally for life. She sits across from me with a plate of food going cold in front of her. A scar distorts the right side of her face; pulling at her lower eye-lid, melting away part of her nostril, and tightening her mouth.

Earlier, she had complained of pain in her leg. “The scarring on my leg still hurts, 11 years after this was done to me,” she tells me as she briskly massages her leg through her jeans. “It’s especially bad when it’s cold. The scars run all the way from my face, neck, arms, back, and legs. It’s a miracle I survived,” she explains.

Benta was attacked with sulphuric acid in 2008 by someone she thought of as a friend. She narrates how she came to know her attacker, whom she identifies as Mark*.

“My mother passed on when I was eight. A year later, the man I knew as my father also passed on. It was only after his demise that my siblings and I learned that he wasn’t our biological father. His side of the family sent us back to my mother’s people -- which meant we had to live with my grandmother”

The comfortable life that Benta and her siblings had hitherto known came to an abrupt end. Her older siblings quit school and moved to nearby towns to fend for themselves. “My twin sister and I were left to live with our grandmother in Oyugis. One night, I saw my grandmother practice some weird rituals at night. I knew what she was doing wasn’t right, so I confronted her about it.”

This resulted in a debacle which ended with Benta being sent away from home. She was just 13. “I was suddenly alone in a big wide world. I wished for death. Fortunately, some people in the village took me into their homes. However, I soon realised some of them harboured ulterior motives. At the first home, the man would sneak into my room to rape me. I knew no one would believe or defend me, so I kept it to myself”

Benta’s desire was to go to school and have a better future. “I wanted a different life and I knew education was the key. I did odd jobs and saved up some money to travel to Nairobi, where the Ministry of Education gave me a letter to take back to the local Children’s Department,” she says.

“However, the person in charge of the Children’s Department told me he would take me as his wife, and cater for my education. Never mind he already had two wives. I was disappointed and disillusioned. It seemed like every person I thought would help was only out to abuse me.”

She met Mark during this period. She estimates that he was around 26-years-old. “To me, that seemed better than the older men who were approaching me. He was a skinny guy, so in my childish mind he didn’t seem that old. He told me that his mother would help me get a scholarship. He took me to his house to live with him as his girlfriend. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I accepted his proposal.”

She soon realised that Mark didn’t really want to help. Through a church in Eldoret, Benta finally found a bishop who was willing to sponsor her education in exchange for sexual favours. “Mark accompanied me when I went to register to the school, and I lied that he was my cousin and guardian. I said that he was the one paying for my education. I managed to study without trouble until I was in Fourth Form. During the school holidays, I would go back to live with Mark. He would have sex with me despite the fact that I was a minor. But I always made it clear to him that I wasn’t his girlfriend or wife. I was just with him because I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

Marriage proposal gone wrong

On the fateful day, Mark was angry that Benta had repeatedly turned down his marriage proposal. “It was in 2008. I was in Fourth Form and it was the second term. We had closed for the school holidays and I met Mark in Oyugis town. As we were walking home, Mark started pestering me again about marrying him and I reiterated that I wanted to pursue education and I couldn’t marry him.”

Mark had been telling everyone that he was paying for Benta’s education and catering for all her needs. She went along with the lie to avoid scrutiny into their relationship. “Even our friends thought I was using him. But the truth was that he was even using the money from my sponsor to support himself,” she says.

On that day, he made cryptic utterances which Benta dismissed as empty threats. “He said ‘today could be the end of you’ and that my decision would decide my fate. He told me that I would be in the news.”

Suddenly, Mark stepped back from Benta and pulled a bottle from his coat pocket. “He splashed its contents on the back of my nape. I immediately knew that it was acid because of how it burned. I turned, thinking I would kick him and run, but he splashed more of the acid on my face and chest. It got into my right eye, my nose, and my mouth. I could feel my tongue swelling up in my mouth. Then he splashed more on my back and legs.”

In the worst pain of her life, Benta ran to a nearby boda boda stage. “On seeing me, the bodaboda guys ran away. I must have been a horrific sight. When acid touches skin it eats into the flesh and melts it, turns you very black, and stiffens you up.  I felt like I was dying,” she says, her voice wavering with the memory.

Before losing consciousness, she told the few boda boda guys who had remained behind what had happened. “The next thing I knew, I was in a nearby hospital. The news of my attack had spread far and wide.

However, the story had been changed to that my boyfriend, who had sponsored me through school, had found me having sex with another man. I was being called a slut and even the nurses at the hospital refused to treat me.

I was hidden in a tiny room with a thin mattress all by myself. They said that I should have died and spared everyone the trouble. People would come from all over Oyugis to peep at me through the window. They would call me maiti, ‘a corpse’.”

Fortunately, a doctor from Uganda came on a hospital visit and insisted on seeing Benta. “He said that he had seen me in a dream. He was appalled at how I was being treated. He made sure that I was moved to a comfortable bed and that I got the proper treatment and surgery.

At the time, my sight was very weak and I could only identify this wonderful gentleman by his voice. He went back to Uganda before I regained my sight. To date, I still don’t know how he looks.”

Benta slowly regained her sight and eventually healed enough to be discharged after nine months. “Mark’s family took me in, with promises of taking me back to school and even paying for plastic surgery. But their real motive was to get me to drop the case against Mark, who had been arrested. They even convinced me to register for an ID before I was 18 so I would be considered an adult and therefore old enough to dismiss the case. ”

Through the help of her sponsor, she eventually completed both her high school and college education. She has a diploma in Community Development and Project Management and is currently looking for employment. “It has been a rough journey for me but I trust that God has a wonderful plan for my life,” she says.

In February 2019, she left an emotionally and physically abusive marriage. She is a mother of two.

Has she forgiven the man who attacked her? “Yes. I chose to forgive him and move on with my life. I rarely think of him, even though I will always have to live with what he did to me.

“If I had the money to have plastic surgery, I would go for it. But I have made peace with my scars and whenever I feel depressed, I pick myself up for the sake of my children.”

*Some names have been changed to protect identity.