Former President Barack Obama on Monday mourned the death of his “beloved” Kenyan grandmother after she died overnight at age 99.
Obama paid tribute to Sarah Onyango Obama after his father’s stepmother died of natural causes at a hospital in the western Kenyan city of Kisumu.
“We will miss her dearly, but we’ll celebrate with gratitude her long and remarkable life,” the former president tweeted.
Although many Kenyans fondly referred to the Obama matriarch as “Mama Sarah,” the former president said the family simply called her “Dani,” which means grandma in the local Luo language.
A daughter of the elderly grandmother confirmed her death early Monday, a few days after she was hospitalized.
“We are devastated,” said Marsat Onyango, the daughter said.
Family spokesman Sheik Musa Ismail said Sarah Obama tested negative for coronavirus.
“Mama was sick with normal diseases she did not die of COVID-19,” Ismail said.
Sarah Obama is expected to be buried Tuesday within a day of her death, in accordance with Islamic law. She was a Muslim, unlike former President Obama, who is a practicing Christian.
Restrictions to prevent the spread of coronavirus limit the size of funerals in Kenya, which is suffering a surge of infections and deaths from the pandemic.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta also paid tribute to the woman ubiquitously known as “Mama Sarah.”
“We’ve lost a strong, virtuous woman, a matriarch who held together the Obama family and was an icon of family values,” President Uhuru Kenyatta said.
Sarah Obama, who was the second wife of President Obama’s grandfather, was revered for her tireless work on behalf of orphans and often took orphans into her home in rural western Kenya.
In his memoir, “Dreams from My Father,” President Obama described meeting Sarah Obama during his 1988 trip to his father’s homeland.
They struggled to communicate at first but later developed an enduring warm bond, he wrote, and the matriarch later attended his first inauguration as president in 2009.
