The tears of a brave mother.

• Author: Balan, Cristina
• Position: Personal account

"He went to school. That's why he died. If he wouldn't have studied so many years he'd still be alive, helping me around and raising his children," says Eudochia Motco, his mother. She is eighty-three years old and in about four hours her youngest son, Filaret, a UN staff from Romania, is going to be buried. He was killed when the UN compound in Mazar-i-Sharif was attacked on 1 April 2011.

Eudochia can barely move her feet because of a congenital condition, but she refuses my help when going to the other room where the sealed casket is placed. She won't be able to go to the cemetery, and she wants to spend any available moment close to her last born.

Before coming to the funeral I expected to see Eudochia crying, but she has no more tears left. The fire that burned down her house two months ago dried them up.

"Last Sunday, when he called me as usual, Filaret promised he would come visit us for Easter. He kept his word," she says, while someone from the family pulls a chair close to her. She takes her seat slowly, gently touches the UN flag that covers the coffin and goes on: "He also said he will stay two more years in Afghanistan, until he would be able to save enough money and rebuild the house."

I am looking at her other four children--two sons and two daughters--who bow their heads. Ion, the first born, can't stop weeping. He was the one who had saved his mother from the fire.

"Is it true that Filaret was beheaded?" whispers Ovidiu, a cousin of Filaret. "The UN should perform a proper investigation on that clash. It can't change anything in this particular case, but the security of staffers must be increased. And that American priest--how can he call himself a man of God? Look what he did. He should be sent to jail." The UN officer who guarded the casket all the way from Afghanistan explains that Filaret was shot to death. The UN has asked the Afghan Government to investigate the incident.

Eight soldiers go...