Obama family matriarch dies at 99
Sarah Obama, the matriarch of former President Barack Obama’s Kenyan family, has died, relatives and officials confirmed Monday. She was at least 99 years old.
Mama Sarah, as the stepgrandmother of the former U.S. president was fondly called, promoted education for girls and orphans in her rural
Kogelo village. She died around 4 a.m. local time while being treated at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral hospital in Kisumu, Kenya’s third-largest city in the country’s west, according to her daughter Marsat Onyango.
“She died this morning. We are devastated,” Onyango told The Associated Press on a phone call.
“Mama was sick with normal diseases, she did not die of COVID-19,” a family spokesman, Sheik Musa Ismail, said, adding that she had tested negative for the disease. He said she had been ill for a week before being taken to the hospital.
President Obama has sent his condolences to his family, he said.
“My family and I are mourning the loss of our beloved grandmother, Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama, affectionately known to many as ‘Mama Sarah’ but known to us as ‘Dani’ or Granny,” the former president posted on Twitter, with a photo of the young Obama with his grandmother. “We will miss her dearly, but we’ll celebrate with gratitude her long and remarkable life.”
She will be buried today before midday and the funeral will be held under Islamic rites.
“The passing away of Mama Sarah is a big blow to our nation. We’ve lost a strong, virtuous woman, a matriarch who held together the Obama family and was an icon of family values,” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said.
She will be remembered for her work to promote education to empower orphans, Kisumu Gov. Anyang Nyong’o said while offering his condolences to the people of Kogelo village for losing a matriarch.