Mohammed Qataa's mother wanders the streets of Aleppo looking into strangers' faces as she tries to find her son's killers.
She knows she would recognise them. She was looking right at them when, in front of a dumbstruck and terrified crowd, Mohammed was shot dead, accused of blasphemy.
She remembers Mohammed as a happy, dutiful son, well known and well-liked in the Shaar neighbourhood where the men of the family scrape a living with a coffee cart.
He was 14 years old, but with no schooling possible because of the war he was usually to be found on the busy main thoroughfare through Shaar, selling the thick, sweet coffee they prefer here.
One day last month, someone asked him for a free cup. "Not even if the Prophet himself returns," he had replied, laughing. That remark was a death sentence.
It was overheard by three armed men. They dragged him to a car and took him away. Half-an-hour later, a badly beaten Mohammed was dumped back in the road by his cart.
The men, showing no fear that anyone would question what they were doing, summoned a crowd with shouts of "Oh People of Aleppo. Oh people of Shaar." Their bellows alerted Mohammed's mother.
Recalling what happened next, she buries her face in her hands and weeps.
"One of them shouted: 'Whoever insults the Prophet will be killed according to Sharia'," she told me.
"I ran down barefoot to the streets. I heard the first shot. I fell to the ground when I got there.
"One of them shot him again and kicked him. He shot him for a third time and stamped on him.
"I said: 'Why are you killing him? He's still a child!' The man shouted: 'He is not a Muslim - leave!'" (+ video) » | Tuesday, July 02, 2013
