He got involved in the protests after seeing images of the death of Alvarito Conrado on television. He thought it was not fair they were killing students, let alone children, and he started to participate even more actively after a family was murdered in Managua’s Carlos Marx neighbourhood.

That was how Leyting started going to the marches and manning the barricades. During the afternoon of Monday July 23 the Police turned out in force in the Camilo Ortega neighborhood in the city of Jinotega, with around 200 police officers deployed in the area to attack a march of independent anti-government protesters. At 4:30 on the Tuesday morning police officers and paramilitary members surrounded the area, shouting at the youngsters to “Surrender, sons of bitches, because we’re coming in!” Witnesses told the family that a police officer first murdered young Brayan Picado and then turned to Leyting, who raised his arms and said he was surrendering, but it did not make any difference to the police officer. “You, too,” he shouted and shot him at point-blank range.

“I felt like I’d been drugged, as if someone had anesthetised me or something… I was there, but I didn’t believe it,” says Mirta Ibelis, who took her boy’s body from the street in order to hold his wake at his uncles’ house under intense police surveillance and harassment.

“We took him out of the house at 1:30 on the 25th to carry him to the church,” his mother explains. “The mass ended at 3:00 and we took him to the cemetery. They say there were shots during the burial, but honestly I didn’t hear them. Maybe I was concentrating so hard on him that I only saw people running.”

His mother feels that the example Leyting left behind was that of a very decided kid, because he said he was not afraid of death and even left some sound recordings saying “I’m blue and white! Long live free Nicaragua!”

His family wants him to be forever remembered as a brave boy, “To keep him present at every moment and in each instant,” as his mother says tearfully, “so he can always live in the hearts of each person and the new youth. For us to find justice… for the person who shot him to pay for it.”