Fatima Khan is a name everyone of us should know.

We know of the young girl Malala Yusufzai.

We know of Emmeline Pankhurst, Florence Nightingale, Mother Teresa and, more recently, Doreen Lawrence.

But Fatima Khan is not at the forefront of our consciousness – but most definitely should be.

She hasn’t received any awards and what she did was not for self interest, so it is probably fitting that we do not immediately identify with who she is or what she has done.

Fatima Khan is a mother and grandmother, but what makes her stand out is her courage in the face of every door being closed, every avenue barricaded – no obstacle was going to stop her doing what she had to do.

Fatima Khan was the mother of Abbas Khan, a doctor, who was selfless in his nature to help people affected by atrocities being carried out throughout the world today.

He went missing on November 24, 2012, captured by Assad Al Bashar’s henchmen and kept in prison, tortured and then the inevitable.

But Fatima Khan was not prepared to witness the funeral of her own son, in her words, and like every mother all she wanted was her own son back and she was not going to leave any stone unturned for that to happen.

In July 2013, she flew to Damascus to find her him.

When Fatima eventually got to see him, there was nothing of him, emaciated, tortured, beaten and in shackles, his nails pulled off. He had been charged with terrorism and was going to be tried in a court. Fatima tried everything to get him moved and out of Syria.

She fought his case and got him transferred to Addra prison, somewhere with no torture, light and running water.

There she visited him everyday, smuggling out a letter written by him to William Hague, urging the foreign office to help get him out, but on December 16, Fatima’s world fell apart.

The news the family was dreading had become a reality. Abbas would eventually be returned to her, but not alive – the Syrians had murdered him. Although they told her Abbas had committed suicide, Fatima knew different.

This was her son, who she had given birth to, nurtured, loved and put her own life in danger for.

She had travelled across the world to find him, and to this day, she has vowed never to rest until the truth is finally out.

Like the Hillsborough mothers before her from Doreen Jones, Hilda Hammond and Ann Williams, the Assad regime will realise the most efficacious force of all is a mother’s love.