Al Saray is one of more than 300 people killed since anti-government demonstrations erupted on October 1.
Amid mounting frustration over years of corruption, high unemployment and poor public services, men and women of all ages and from all walks of life have taken to the streets to demand the overhaul of the country's political system. At least 15,000 have been injured, according to the Independent High Commission for Human Rights of Iraq.
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While the uprising began with peaceful demonstrations, some protests have since turned violent as security forces used live ammunition and protesters threw firebombs. A government report in mid-October found that security forces used excessive force against protesters. The majority of the demonstrators who have been met with lethal force were young men born in the 1990s, the independent rights group told Al Jazeera.
In the capital, Baghdad, most of those killed came from the sprawling slum of Sadr City, and its surrounding neighbourhoods. An unofficial list compiled by the organisers of a memorial tent in Tahrir Square shows the names of 31 victims - all born between 1993 and 2003.
Young men of marrying age, like 21-year-old Muslim Abbas, who was due to graduate from college next year; 23-year-old tuk-tuk driver Hussein Mohammed, whose family was too poor to pay for his burial; or Abbas Ismael, 28, who recently became engaged.
Some were younger, like 14-year-old Hassan, an orphaned teenager who made a home out of the city streets and found a community among the protesters.
But mostly, it is young men like Safaa Al Saray who have taken up positions at the head of the protests. Armed with flags and goggles, and sometimes Molotov cocktails, protesters on the front line of the clashes have repeatedly tried to breach the blast walls set up by government forces in a bid to reach the Green Zone, where ministries and embassies are located.
October 27 was the last time Al Saray would walk through his front door. That afternoon, the young man from Baghdad was shot in the back of the head with a tear gas canister on Al Jumariyah bridge.