🇩🇪🔴 "Since the attack, he wakes up every night screaming."
An African migrant randomly attacked a 14-year-old German boy inside Freiburg’s central train station and tried to gouge out his eye.
The victim’s father, Roland H., also believes the attacker may have tried to carve a swastika into the boy’s cheek.
The suspect has already been released by police.
Leon had just stepped off a train from Heilbronn on Sept. 9 and was waiting on a staircase for his father, 54-year-old Roland H., when an Ethiopian man punched him in the face without warning. The blow knocked Leon's head against a stone step and left him dazed.
The attacker then bent over him, reached for his eye and shouted, "I'll kill you!"
A cafe owner, 46-year-old Pino R., said he saw the assault and intervened.
"I saw the boy sitting by the stairs. At that moment, I saw and heard the perpetrator running towards the boy shouting: 'I'll kill you,"' Pino R. told Bild newspaper.
He added, "Then, the man reached for the boy's eye and threatened to tear out his eyeball. Then, I jumped on the attacker and pulled him down."
Only then, Pino R. said, did he see that the man was holding a carpet knife. He called staff for help and alerted police.
Roland H. arrived shortly afterward and found his injured son on the stairs. Leon was taken to a hospital with injuries to his face and eye.
The father said that the injury on Leon's cheek looks remarkably like a swastika, raising questions about whether the Ethiopian migrant tried to carve the symbol in the boy's face.
"Thank God he missed the eye when he tried to grab it," Roland H. said. "I am so grateful to Pino. He saved my son's life."
Officers found pepper spray and a utility knife in the suspect's pants pocket. The suspect allegedly told police he had mistaken the boy for someone else.
Leon remains in pain and is taking painkillers. He is also receiving psychiatric treatment following the random attack.
"He is now very introverted and has said he will never take the train again," his father said. "Since the attack, he wakes up every night screaming."
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