Quratem, a reporter for the pro-opposition weekly Enab Baladi (The Grapes of My Country),
was killed in government shelling of the Damascus suburb of Darya on November
28, according to his employer and the
pan-Arab news channel Al-Arabiya. Quratem and two local
activists, Marwan Shurbaji and Abd
al-Rahim Shurbaji, died when a mortar shell fell on the building in
which he was working, Eiad Shurbaji,
a relative of the killed activists and an exiled Syrian journalist, told CPJ.
The three bodies were not discovered until November 30 because of continuous
shelling and the large amount of rubble, Shurbaji said.
Quratem was a founding member of Enab Baladi, which
began publishing in January 2012 with a focus on the country’s civil war. Darya had been under heavy government bombardment
since early November 2012, according to news reports. Most people fled when the
government offensive began, but Quratem stayed behind to document the siege and
work with local and international media outlets to get news out of the city, Enab Baladi reported.