Sharjah: Shock and grief continue to envelop the staff and students of Al Jeal Al Jaded Private school as they mourn the death of eight-year-old Obaida Ebrahim Al Sedqi Al Aqrabawi.
“On Sunday night, we read on Facebook that Obaida was found dead in Dubai … It was sad news ... especially the way he was killed ... it’s inhuman and aggressive. The killer deserves the death penalty for his crime,” Asma Ahmad Al Rawi, principal of the school, told Gulf News.
Obaida, a Grade 2 student of the school, was abducted from an industrial area in Sharjah on May 20, and his strangled body found in Al Warqa’a area on May 22 by Dubai Police. The police announced the arrest of a 48-year-old Jordanian male suspect.
The school has also witnessed the extraordinary empathy of children. When the news of Obaida’s disappearance reached the school, the art teacher asked her students to draw a picture in class. A student named Hamdan drew a picture of Obaida tied up in ropes and asking for help. The picture was accompanied by a line that said, “Hamdan, come bring your gun and help me". — A.A.
The news of Obaida’s disappearnce filtered in to the school through Facebook, said Al Rawi, as people were looking for Obaida after posting a missing report.
The school staff immediately got in touch with his parents and also started looking for him.
Obaida had been a student at the school for three years and teachers recalled him as a bright, cheerful boy who would bring a sense of spiritedness to the school’s atmosphere. “He was smart, lively, an active boy who took it on himself to be a leader. He was a little mischievous, [but] this is normal at that age. [Obaida] was loved by all his teachers,” said Al Rawi.
The school has around a 1,000 students and every one of them feels the loss of Obaida, she said.
Al Jeal Al Jaded Private school which Obaida attended. He had been a student there for three years and teachers recalled him as bright and cheerful.
The children heard the news from their parents, she added, and the day following the news, the school observed a moment of silence for Obaida during the morning assembly after which the students were made to understand the importance of how to deal with strangers and protect their safety.
Al Rawi spoke of a student called Mo’amun, studying in a different class, who has been crying since he heard the news of Obaida’s death. “To ease his pain, his teachers have told him that Obaida has gone to heaven,” said Al Rawi.
In light of the incident, the school staff has intensified its efforts at advising parents on how to keep their children protected at all times,
The school’s social specialist, Aliya Abbas, told Gulf News that she educates the students on how to deal with strangers, not to take a ride alone with them anywhere, not to take anything from supermarket owners, and to take permission from their father and mother before doing anything or going to any place.
The incident has galvanised many parents into a greater sense of responsibility. After the incident, school bus supervisors told Al Rawi that a number of parents who they had not previously seen had begun to personally pick up their children from the school bus.
The school has also witnessed the extraordinary empathy of children. When the news of Obaida’s disappearance reached the school, the art teacher asked her students to draw a picture in class. A student named Hamdan drew a picture of Obaida tied up in ropes and asking for help. The picture was accompanied by a line that said, ”Hamdan come, bring your gun and help me.”
Maths teacher Anam, who burst into tears as she spoke of Obaida, said that he was extremely fond of her. She told Gulf News, “[Every time], Obaida told me, “I love you so much.” He was a leader and he seemed to be bigger than his age ... He was very well known in the school because he was very active, very smart,” she said.
Recalling the Thursday before the fateful day he went missing, Anam said, “Obaida promised to bring me a gift on Sunday as the school on Thursday celebrated Hag Al Laila. ‘What do you want,’ he asked. I replied, ‘My sweet [boy], I don’t want anything. Just be quiet in class’.”
That Thursday, Anam said, Obaida had sat for an Arabic exam.
The maths teacher also recalls an incident when Sharjah Police visited their school and delivered a lecture on ‘No for sexual assault’. The police had asked Grade 4 students to attend the lecture and Obaida, even though he was in Grade 2, insisted that he would attend the lecture. He interacted with the police and received a gift as well, she said.
“We are in a state of shock. We can’t believe what has happened, but this is Allah’s will,” she said.
Anam said she saw Obaida in her dreams after his death. He was playing with a number of children and was smiling at her. He told her that now “he is in a place better than [he had been] in life”.
