Ecuador takes on 'racist attack'

Maria Fernanda Espinosa said she would travel to Barcelona to meet the 16-year-old girl, who was repeatedly hit and kicked by a man on a train.

The attack in Barcelona, which has provoked widespread indignation, was captured on film by security cameras.

A local man, aged 21, was charged with racially aggravated assault.

Identified only as Sergi Xavier MM, he was released pending further proceedings, a court statement said.

'Vile act'

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa said that the government would pay the teenager's legal fees.

Ecuador's foreign ministry said on Tuesday it had sent a diplomatic note to the Spanish embassy in Quito in which the government expressed its "most energetic protest for this xenophobic act", which happened on 7 October.

Spain's foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, described the attack as "vile and intolerable", and said it would not go unpunished.

The girl's mother, who asked not to be identified, told Radio Quito she was extremely worried about her daughter.

"Now I don't feel safe when she's alone, when she has to go to school," she said, according to the Associated Press news agency.