Thread by @SEFFLisnaskea

SEFF remembers Philip Rafferty, 14, RC, murdered 48 yrs ago, 31/1/73 by UDA/UFF after he was abducted close to his home in Andersonston, around 21:30 the day before when on his way to band practice. He was found hooded & shot at the Giant's Ring.

His parents reported him ...

..missing to the RUC in the early hrs the next day not knowing their son's body had already been found after police were tipped off anonymously.

It was believed by the police that Philip's killers made him kneel on a grass bank, his coat pulled over his head & then shot. He'd ..

..just celebrated his 14th birthday 2 wks before.

Philip's Jewish uncle wrote 2 days later to a London paper condemning stating that he (the uncle) had lost a cousin in Hitler's gas chambers. "now 30 yrs on, another child had died needlessly", adding that Philip was "a small..

frail boy who suffered from asthma.

He was his parents' pride & joy; he was barely 14. That's all the yrs Philip had. For this week in Belfast while other kids played, he was abducted, hooded, shot through the head & his body dumped. Why did he die?".

Philip's murder should ..

..ever be viewed as an act of loyalism, it was an act of sectarian and ethnic fuelled hatred.

SEFF's thoughts and prayers are with all innocents impacted by Philip's murder.