The Obama family matriarch passed away in a Kenyan hospital at the age of 99.

On March 29, 2021, Sarah Obama, the grandmother of the Obama family, passed away. During that time, she was 99 years old.

In her small rural Kogelo hamlet, Mama Sarah, better known as the former president’s stepgrandmother, supported education for girls and orphans.

Her daughter Marsat Onyango claims that she passed away around four in the morning.
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the third-largest city in Kenya, Kisumu, is in the west of the country and is home to the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital.

She died this morning, I understand.
Over the phone, Onyango told The Associated Press, “We are devastated.

Sheik Musa Ismail, a family spokesman, stated that “Mama was sick with normal diseases; she did not die of Covid-19,” adding that she had tested negative for the disease. He claimed that she had been ill for a week before being admitted.

President Barack Obama offered his condolences to the family.

The former president posted a picture of himself and his grandmother when they were children on Twitter and wrote, “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. Despite how much we will miss her, we are grateful for her lengthy and remarkable life. ”.

Sarah Ogwel Onyango Obama, affectionately known to many as “Mama Sarah,” but to us as “Dani” or Granny, passed away, and my family and I are in deep sorrow. She will be sorely missed, but we will gratefully honor her long and extraordinary life. Barack Obama (@BarackObama), March 29, 2021. http://twitter.com/avDY4f1PVu.

“Mama Sarah’s passing is a terrible blow to our nation. We’ve lost a matriarch who kept the Obama family together and was a role model for family values.
She was strong and moral, Kenyatta continued.

In a message to the residents of Kogelo village, Kisumu Governor Anyang Nyong’o expressed his condolences for the loss of a matriarch and said she will be remembered for her efforts to promote education and empower orphans.

He said, “She was a philanthropist who raised money to pay for orphans’ school fees.

Having raised President Obama’s father, Barack Obama, Sr., Sarah Obama was the second wife of the president’s grandfather. The family is from Kenya’s Luo ethnic group.

In his autobiography, “Dreams from My Father,” President Obama adored her and referred to her as “Granny.”. He recalled meeting her on a visit to his father’s hometown in 1988 and how their initial awkwardness as they struggled to communicate developed into a loving relationship.

She was present for his first presidential inauguration in 2009. Obama later made another reference to his grandmother in a speech he gave to the UN General Assembly in September 2014.

For years, Sarah Obama has fostered orphans in her home. By providing them with school supplies, uniforms, basic medical needs, and school fees, the Mama Sara Obama Foundation helped children who had lost their parents.

Even as an adult, she admitted to the Associated Press in 2014, she was unable to read the letters that would come in the mail. She declared that she did not want her children to grow up without an education. She made sure that all of the kids in her family went to school as a result.

She remembered taking the president’s father’s bicycle six miles each way to school every day from the family’s small town of Kogelo to the bigger town of Ngiya to make sure he got the education she never did.

Sarah Obama said, “I love education,” adding that it teaches children “how to be self-sufficient,” especially girls who are frequently denied the chance to go to school.

She said, “If a woman gets an education, she will educate not only her family but the entire village.

She received the first Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Education Pioneer Award from the UN in 2014 in recognition of her efforts to advance education.