The world’s oldest living person, Maria Branyas Morera from Spain, who was born in the United States and lived through both world wars, has passed away at the age of 117, her family announced on Tuesday.
“Maria Branyas has left us. She passed away as she wished: peacefully in her sleep, without pain,” her family shared on her social media account on X.
“We will always cherish her for her wisdom and kindness,” they added.
Branyas, who spent the last 20 years at the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in Olot, northeastern Spain, had expressed feeling “weak” in a post on Tuesday.
“The time is near. Don’t cry; I don’t like tears. And above all, don’t suffer for me. Wherever I go, I will be happy,” she wrote in the account managed by her family.
Guinness World Records had recognized Branyas as the world’s oldest person in January 2023 after the passing of French nun Lucile Randon at 118.
Following Branyas’s death, the title of the world’s oldest living person now belongs to Japan’s Tomiko Itooka, born on May 23, 1908, who is currently 116 years old, according to the US Gerontology Research Group.