Among the longevity records | A South African woman celebrated her 118th birthday

(Touwsrivier) A South African woman celebrated her 118th birthday on Friday – making her one of the oldest people in the world – during a small party in a retirement home 180 km to the northeast from Cape Town.

Margaret Maritz was born on September 27, 1906, according to a copy of her identity card shown to journalists by an association that helped organize her birthday in the town of Touws River.

The ID card could not be independently verified. Her date of birth would mean that she is older than the Japanese Tomiko Itooka, 116, born on May 23, 1908 and recorded by the American organization the Gerontology Research Group as the oldest of humanity.

Surrounded by her 14 children, the South African blew out a candle on a large birthday cake.

“She talks about her life when she was young, (saying) that you have to respect your mother and father. She didn’t drink, she didn’t smoke,” a nurse at the retirement home, Gregory Elroy Adams, told AFP.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever reach that age. But for me, it is a very, very great privilege to have a mother who is this age,” said one of her children, Liza Daniels, 67 years old.

Died in 1997, Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who lived to be 122 years and 164 days old, is the oldest person in the world known to date, according to the Guinness World Records website. “Several people have claimed to be older than Jeanne Calment, but there has never been enough evidence to be certain,” according to the site.