Scarred survivors inspire Italy to fight domestic violence
ROME — Lucia Annibali’s face was rebuilt for the price of atrocious pain and 18 surgeries after an acid attack ordered by her ex-boyfriend corroded her eyelids, cheeks and forehead almost to the bone and left her nearly blind.
The man she enraged with a breakup is now serving a 20-year sentence for attempted murder. Prosecutors allege that after he failed to kill Annibali by tampering with a gas line in her apartment, he engaged two men to douse her with sulfuric acid when she got home the evening of April 16, 2013.
While she lay in agony in a hospital emergency room, Annibali made a vow to her ex, who was then a lawyer in an Adriatic resort town, as was she. “I swear to you that I will make it,” she told him in an imaginary conversation. “If you wanted to annihilate me, know that you didn’t succeed.”
Annibali, now 39, kept her promise. She also proudly forged a new role for herself in what is an expanding cadre of courageous muses who are determined to inspire fellow women in Italy to rebel against violence at the hands of controlling men.