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News from the Caribbean as of
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World's oldest person dies in Puerto Rico at 115
Thursday, January 25, 2007
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AFP): The world's oldest person, Emiliano Mercado del Toro, died Wednesday in his Puerto Rico home at the age of 115, his family said.
"Don Emiliano," as he was known in the US commonwealth island, died after being struck by fever and breathing problems, his niece Tomasita Ruiz told local radio.
"He had asthma overnight and died in the morning," said Ruiz, whose uncle died at her home in Isabela in the northwest.
Mercado del Toro, who would have turned 116 in August, had lost the will to live, she said.
"Sometimes he would shout that he no longer wanted to live. He was tired of living," Ruiz said.
Born on August 21, 1891 in Cabo Rojo in the Caribbean islands southwest, he was 115 years, five months and three days old when he died.
The Guinness World Records book named him the oldest man in the world in January 2005. He became the world's oldest person in December after an American woman, Elizabeth Bolden, died at 116.
He was also the oldest non-combat veteran in the world. He was called up by the US military during World War I in 1918 but never saw any action.
Mercado del Toro was born in the 19th century when Spain still governed over the island before the 1898 US invasion.
He will be buried Friday in Cabo Rojo.
An American woman, Emma Tillman, a former maid of Hollywood legend Katharine Hepburn and the daughter of freed black slaves will now likely become the world's oldest person. Born November 22, 1892, she is 114 years old.
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