“Sheikha” chronicles the heroism of the UAE martyrs

“Ambassador of the Children of Martyrs” is a title that the 14-year-old girl, Sheikha Suleiman Abdullah Al-Abri, received from followers of her various activities on social media sites, which aim to honor the nation’s valiant martyrs and immortalize their names, by narrating excerpts from their lives and chronicling their heroism.

The most important initiative of Sheikha, the daughter of the nation’s martyr, First Lieutenant Pilot Suleiman Al-Abri, was to create a special account for the Emirati martyrs on Instagram, which, according to her, is concerned with publishing pictures, information, and stories about the most important milestones in their lives, in addition to publishing any news, or Official procedures related to the nation’s martyrs and their families.

Sheikha added to Emirates Today: “Although I have not seen my heroic father, who was martyred in 2002, and I was one year old at the time, I always feel that he is with us, and this feeling was instilled by my mother in me and my brother (Abdullah). Since we started to realize things, not a day went by without her talking to us about my father, and if any of us made a mistake, she would threaten us that this matter would make our father angry with us, which is a sufficient threat. By discouraging us from any action that my mother does not deem right.”

Sheikha, who studies in the ninth grade at Abu Dhabi National School, continued:

“My mother taught us, since we began to realize and ask about my father, not to be sad about his loss. Rather, she strengthened within us the feeling of pride and dignity, for the sacrifice my martyr father made 13 years ago, when he insisted on sacrificing himself and his life in order to save hundreds of civilians, when his plane suffered a malfunction. A technician during one of the training missions refused to leave the plane due to the possibility of it falling over a residential area. He kept maneuvering and trying hard to walk with it, until it fell into an area. Desert, to achieve his honorable goal.

She pointed out that “since she was seven years old, she had been asking and collecting all the information and memories about her father, and always listening to everything that was said about him by her mother, grandfather, and grandmother, until she had a large store of information about her father, making it more like a family reference about him.”

Sheikha said: “When the UAE military operation began in Yemen, and we received news of the martyrdom of a group of men from our armed forces, I felt at the time that each one of these martyrs was a duplicate of my father, and at that time I began to think about working to commemorate their memory and chronicle their heroism, as I do.” Completely for my father, so I conveyed the idea to my mother, who encouraged me and helped me a lot in implementation, so I created a page on Instagram last August 19, under the supervision and management of my mother. In it, I expressed my pride in the martyrdom of my father and the valiant martyrs of our forces, and I began with my mother to collect all the news, pictures, stories, and procedures related to the martyrs or their families, and at that time I found the follow-up rates rising in a way that I did not expect, as it has so far reached about 10,000 followers and interactors with the page.

Regarding the reasons that prompted followers to describe her as “the ambassador of the children of the martyrs,” Sheikha said: “There is a real need for someone to represent the children of the martyrs in all forums.”