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World's oldest person dies age 114

The world's oldest person, a nun named Eugenie Blanchard, died on Thursday aged 114 in the French West Indies, officials said.

Published: 11:47PM GMT 04 Nov 2010



French former nun Eugenie Blanchard. Blanchard the world's oldest woman has died aged 114 Photo: EPA

Ms Blanchard died in hospital on Saint-Barthelemy, an island some 250 kilometres (150 miles) north of Guadeloupe, around 3:00am (0700 GMT), local officials said. She was born on Saint-Barthelemy, a French overseas territory, on February 16, 1896 and after becoming a Catholic nun left to pursue her vocation in the then-bustling Dutch West Indies colony of Curaçao.

Her great-nephew Daniel Blanchard, a former mayor of Saint-Barthelemy, told AFP he believed she lived so long because "she had decided to give her virginity to God". She returned to Saint-Barthelemy after retiring and had lived there for the past 30 years.

There she earned the name "Douchy", meaning "sweets" in the Dutch West Indies dialect, since she would offer "douchy" to local children to entice them to attend religious readings, her great-nephew said. Eugenie Blanchard became the world's oldest person on May 4 after the death of Kama Chinen of Japan who passed away days before her 115th birthday.