Syrian Armenian Mireille Hindoyan and her 12-year-old brother Arman were at their family's supermarket when the shelling started in Aleppo, the article published in AFP reads.

On that day, Syrian star swimmer Mireille had decided to skip her daily swim at an Aleppo pool to work at her family's supermarket.

"They went to God, maybe living with him is better than living in war," her mother Betty said, looking at Mireille's swimming medals and photos of the dark-haired girl and her brother.

The middle child of Betty and Viken, 19-year-old Movses, survived but was seriously wounded.

Mireille was a Syrian swimming champion who dreamt of becoming a nutritionist.

"Mireille usually goes to the pool every day around 11 am to swim, but on that day she came to our supermarket and told me she didn't feel like swimming. I asked her to go home, but she refused,'' Betty said.

Betty was herself in the supermarket at the moment of explosion. In her words, she and her three children were thrown to the ground. Movses screamed that his hand was gone. The woman began calling out to Mireille and Arman, thinking they were alive. Betty was bleeding too, and wasn't able to lift her bleeding daughter.

Mireille had won medals in both Syria and Armenia and was also coaching young female swimmers in Aleppo and training to swim in open-water long-distance competitions.

According to the girl's coach, Mireille was very ambitious and remained an athlete even after the war began.

"It was Mireille who gave us strength," Viken said.