The oldest person in the world, Spanish Maria Branyas, has died at the age of 117

“She died as she wanted: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” her entourage said on the social network X.

The oldest person in the world, Spanish woman María Branyas Morera, died on Tuesday, August 20, at the age of 117 in Olot, in the northeast of Spain, her family announced on her X account. She had survived the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, as well as Covid, which she caught in 2020 shortly after reaching the age of 113 and from which she recovered in a few days.

“Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wanted: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain. A few days ago, she told us: ‘One day, I will leave here (…) and I will cease to exist in this body. One day, I don’t know, but it’s very close, this long journey will be over'”has published little about his entourage, who wants to remember “his advice and his kindness”. “I feel weak. My time is approaching. Don’t cry, I don’t like tears. And above all, don’t feel sorry for me. Wherever I go, I will be happy.”we could read on Monday on the same account, managed by his family.

María Branyas was the oldest person in the world, according to the Gerontological Research Group of the United States and the Guinness Book of Records. She succeeded the Frenchwoman Lucile Randon, who died at the age of 118 in January 2023. Born on March 4, 1907 in San Francisco, California, where her family had emigrated, she returned to Spain in 1915. The Spaniard had lived in the Santa Maria del Tura retirement home in Olot, Catalonia, for more than twenty years.

A team from the University of Barcelona had studied her DNA to determine the reasons for her longevity. Her youngest daughter, Rosa Moret, in her eighties, had explained that her mother “had never been to the hospital and had never had a fracture”. One of the researchers, Manel Esteller, had expressed surprise at his good health, in an interview published in October 2023 by the Spanish daily ABC.“She is completely lucid. She remembers with impressive acuity moments from when she was only four years old and has no cardiovascular disease, which is common in people of advanced age. The only problems she has are with mobility and hearing. It is incredible.”enthused this genetics researcher.