A Romanian construction worker whose face was slashed in a racist attack in Dublin says he fears he will be left with a scar which makes him look like a criminal.
Mr Vasile Cozma (24) was attacked last weekend by a group of men who shouted racist taunts at him and another Romanian man.
The pair were badly beaten in Gardiner Place in the north inner city at around 2 a.m. last Sunday.
Mr Cozma said they were initially stopped by two men who asked them for cigarettes and then inquired where they were from.
"I said I'm from Romania and they started saying bad things like 'f...ing refugees'," he said.
"Then more men joined them from a car and from another group until there were about 10 or fifteen of them. They started punching us and I didn't see who cut me with a knife.
"I felt something and I think somebody punched me but when I put my hand to my face I didn't know where my mouth was. There was lots of blood."
Mr Cozma sustained a gash of several inches stretching from his upper lip across his left jaw, which required about 13 stitches. He said he had to wait for 10 hours in the Mater Hospital in Dublin before being treated.
He said: "I am concerned that I will have a big scar. I am a young man and I wouldn't mind if it was on the body or something, but it's on the front of my face and I'll look like a criminal."
Mr Cozma has lived in Ireland for four years and works as a general labourer on building sites. He said he has never before suffered any racist abuse, but after the weekend's incident he will not venture out late at night in Dublin.
He said: "I think it was a racist attack but I don't want to say bad things about the Irish because I have a lot of Irish friends who don't make any difference between me and the Irish. You can't put all the people in one pot. There can be 10 bad people and the rest good."
Mr Cozma said he has reported the incident to gardaí. A racial incident has been defined by gardaí as one which is perceived to be racially motivated by the victim, a member of the Garda, a witness or someone acting for the victim.
The attack on Mr Cozma and his friend follows the murder of a Chinese man, Mr Zhao Liu Tao, in a reportedly racist attack by a number of youths in Beaumont, north Dublin, last January.