Story By: Lisa-Maria Goertz, Sub-Editor: Michael Leidig, Agency: Central European News

A woman in Spain was attacked with acid which was reportedly thrown over her and her young daughter by an obsessed stalker who remained at large despite having been reported to police on various occasions.

The 35-year-old woman, identified as Ana Mari, says she was at her home in the town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, in the north-eastern Spanish region of Catalonia when the attack happened.

In a recent interview from her hospital bed with a bandaged eye and head, Ana breaks down in tears while she recounts what happened, saying the man was throwing stones at her window at six in the morning.

Ana said: “My parents had come to spend the weekend and they were very scared. I told him to leave.

“It was halfway down the stairs, I had gone down to argue with him, but I didn’t know he had anything on him otherwise I wouldn’t have gone down.

“He threw a bottle of acid on us and burned us alive, my daughter and me. Now I can’t see through this eye and he burned my head and body.

The mother of two daughters of two and five years old describes during the interview how she threw herself over her five-year-old to protect her from the unexpected acid attack.

She said:“Thank God he didn’t get my two-year-old as well.

“I’m lucky he didn’t stab me with the knives he had in his bag.”

The woman has very serious burns on her lips, gums and right eye, which she might lose according to local media, whilst her daughter has less serious burns on her lips and eye.

The 45-year-old aggressor escaped and police are searching for him.

Ana told local media that the man had even said to her on various occasions that if she wouldn’t be with him then he would burn her.

The victim said she had filed complaints to the police about the man on various occasions for stalking and threatening her, saying that he would stand for hours outside her house and throw stones at her window, however, he was not apprehended.

The local council spoke out about the attack on social media calling it: “Vile, an act of malice and lowest moral baseness.”

The council organised a rally in support of the victims, to share “their pain” and stand up against gender violence.

The local Mayor Carles Motas said: “This time we have suffered violent action in the middle of the street, but I am sure that many women suffer it in silence, and for this reason, today we also want to send the message that they must report it and for them to know that we will stand by their side.

“We must remove those who exercise violence against the most vulnerable from our society, we do not want them among us. We need to be persistent to completely eradicate sexist violence.”

The manifesto was read out during the rally and was met with applause from the public.