By Staff Reporter
Former US president Barack Obama has lost his grandmother Sarah Obama (99) who died in Kenya.
Her daughter Marsat Onyango said Sarah was being treated at a hospital in Kisumu, Kenya’s third-largest city for an undisclosed illness.
Former president Obama has been informed of the death and has sent his condolences, according to family spokesman Sheik Musa Ismail.
Sarah, was the second wife of Former President Obama’s grandfather and she helped raise his father, Barack Obama, Sr.
President Obama often showed affection towards his step grandmother and referred to her as ‘Granny’ in his memoir, ‘Dreams from My Father.’
He described meeting her for the first time during his1988 trip to Kenya.
Sarah attended Obama’s first inauguration as president in 2009.
In a statement, Barack Obama 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. We will miss her dearly, but we’ll celebrate with gratitude her long and remarkable life.”
Uhuru Kenyatta, the Kenyan president, paid tribute to Sarah Obama on Twitter.
“The passing away of Mama Sarah is a big blow to our nation,” he wrote. “We’ve lost a strong, virtuous woman. A matriarch who held together the Obama family and was an icon of family values.”
