Victims Of France Acid Attack Identified As Boston College Students

Boston College officials say the four young women who were the victims of an acid attack in France are students at the school.

In a statement, the college said that the students were treated for burns in a hospital in Marseille, where the attack took place, and have since been released.

“It appears that the students are fine, considering the circumstances, though they may require additional treatment for burns,” Nick Gozik, who directs BC’s Office of International Programs, said in the statement. “We have been in contact with the students and their parents and remain in touch with French officials and the U.S. Embassy regarding the incident.”

School officials identified the students as BC juniors Courtney Siverling, Charlotte Kaufman and Michelle Krug, who are enrolled in Boston College's Paris program, and junior Kesley Korsten, who is a student at the Copenhagen Business School in Denmark.

A 41-year-old woman, believed to have mental health problems, was arrested in the assault, and authorities do not believe the attack was motivated by terrorism.

Two of the female tourists suffered facial injuries during the late-morning attack at Marseille's Saint Charles train station, and one of the two also had a possible eye injury, a spokeswoman for the Marseille prosecutor's office told The Associated Press in a phone call.

She said all four of the women, who are in their 20s, were hospitalized, two of them for shock.

The Paris prosecutor's office said that its counter-terrorism division has decided for the time being not to assume jurisdiction for investigating the attack. The prosecutor's office in the capital, which has responsibility for all terror-related cases in France, did not explain the reasoning behind the decision.

Marseille is a port city closer to Barcelona, Spain, than Paris.

Patch will update this report. Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

Photo by Claude Paris/Associated Press