A 117-year-old thought to be the world’s oldest living woman has celebrated her birthday with her 107-year-old sister in Brazil.
Cicera Maria dos Santos was reportedly born in 1906, making her 117 years old.
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If her date of birth is confirmed, it would make her one year older than current Guiness World Record holder Maria Branyas Morera, 116, from Spain.
Cicera celebrated her birthday with her sister Josefa Maria de Conceicao, 107, on September 23 surrounded by family and friends.
The bash included a colourful cake, snacks and a round of applause by all the guests.
The sisters told local media that the secret to living a long life is to have faith in God and to eat properly.
Cicera said: ‘The peace of the Lord be with us. Who can do more than God? Everything is God.’
And her sister added: ‘You have to eat. Beans, corn, cassava, potatoes.’
Cicera lived in the Brazilian countryside for most of her life.
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There she sold chickens at the local market in Paraiba, a state in the northeast of the nation.
Josefa’s grandson Ruan said the eldery sister ‘descended from people who were actually enslaved’.
‘Five generations ago my family was enslaved.
‘They survived everything from the last century, and they beat COVID,’ he explained.
‘The greatest happiness in the world is to be with them here today.’
Slavery was practised in Brazil from the middle of the 16th century until its abolition in the 1860s.
