A BOY who starred in a sitcom based in the Syrian city of Aleppo in which all the roles are played by children has died in the conflict.
Qusai Abtini (14), played the husband in Um Abdou The Aleppan, the first sitcom produced out of rebel-held parts of Syria.
The show is about a housewife who gets into mischief and bickers with her husband and takes place in one of the historic stone houses in the old city of Aleppo, besieged by government forces in one of the worst battlegrounds of Syria's civil war.
Aired in 2014 on a local Aleppo station, it was a light-hearted look at life in the war-ravaged city, finding comedy as it showed residents dealing with everything from cut-offs in electricity and water, to factionalism among rebels, to bombardments and violence.
The child actors, even as they mimic characters of a traditional Aleppo neighbourhood, provide a tone of innocence.
Qusai was killed when a missile struck the car he was in as he tried to escape Aleppo.
Fresh-faced with a toothy grin and thick black hair, the teenager had become a local celebrity.
His life and death underscored the suffering of Aleppans, whose city was once the commercial centre of Syria with a thriving, unique culture but has now been torn to pieces by fighting, with whole neighbourhoods left in ruin.
Tens of thousands in the city have been killed since the summer of 2012, when Aleppo split into rebel- and government-held districts and the two sides turned on each other.
In recent weeks government forces have tightened their siege of rebel-held sections, trying to cut off the last escape routes.
Days after Qusai's death, several dozen men marched through his home district in a symbolic funeral, waving opposition flags and chanting: "Qusai has gone to heaven. Bashar (Assad) is the killer of my people."
Um Abdou the Aleppan aired in nearly 30 episodes, each about 10 minutes long, on the opposition station Halab Today TV.
It was filmed in Aleppo, even as it was subjected almost daily to bombardment. In one out-take, three girls performing a scene jump at the sound of an explosion, then go on with their lines.
Bashar Sakka, the director, said he cast children because they are the witnesses to "the massacres committed by Assad against childhood".
The show is steeped in the atmosphere of Aleppo, Syria's largest city, taking place in the stone alleyways of one of its old neighbourhoods, with the dialogue in the city's distinct accent of Arabic.
The title character, Um Abdou, was played by a young girl named Rasha, while Qusai played her husband, Abu Abdou.
Both show a talent for comic timing, playing a stereotypical traditional husband and wife. He is domineering and patriarchal. She is clever, ambitious and a bit ditzy, dealing with neighbouring families living on top of each other in close quarters.
"Qusai was a very talented boy," Mr Sakka said. "We were looking for an intelligent boy," he said.
"We wanted him to be free with ideas, and without fear of Bashar Assad's regime and its ruthlessness."
Qusai was 10 years old when mass protests first erupted against the rule of President Bashar Assad in March 2011.
He became quickly entangled in the uprising, taking part in anti-Assad demonstrations, often sitting on his older brother's shoulders. He spoke in opposition videos, criticising Assad's government and describing Aleppo's destruction.
At the same time, he acted in school plays.
Afraa Hashem, his school's director, saw his talent and introduced him to Mr Sakka.
"He was very ambitious. Once he moved from acting in plays to TV, his dreams broadened and worked on transforming what he was living through" into his performances, she said.
After the TV series, Qusai had roles in local theatre. Last summer he played a rebel killed in fighting. As his mother weeps over his body, a man tells her: "Be happy for him. He wanted martyrdom and got it."
During recent shelling, Qusai's home was hit and his father was wounded and left in a wheelchair. On July 8 Qusai's father decided to send his children out of Aleppo.
But as the car Qusai was in drove down the one road out of rebel-held parts of Aleppo, a missile struck it.
In a video of the symbolic funeral a few days later, his father in his wheelchair watches the marchers go by, holding a placard reading: "Qusai, Abu Abdu the Aleppan. You are a little hero. You scared the regime with your giant acts so they killed you."
