World's Oldest Known Person Dies Aged 118

The world's oldest-known person Lucile Randon, alias Sister Andre, has died at the age of 118, according to reports.

The Catholic nun died in her sleep at her nursing home in the southern French city of Toulon, her spokesman David Tavella told AFP.

"There is great sadness but... it was her desire to join her beloved brother. For her, it's a liberation," Tavella said.

Randon, who was born in southern France on February 11th, 1904, was long-feted as the oldest person in Europe until last year when the death of Japan's Kane Tanaka, aged 119, left her the longest-lived person on Earth.

Guinness World Records officially acknowledged the nun’s status in April 2022.

Randon grew up in a Protestant family as the only girl among three brothers, living in the southern town of Ales.

She worked as a governess in Paris for the children of wealthy families before she converted to Catholicism and was baptized at the age of 26.

The then joined the Daughters of Charity order of nuns at the age of 41 and was assigned to a hospital in Vichy, where she worked for 31 years.

In later life, she moved to a nursing home in Toulon along the Mediterranean coast. In 2021, she survived catching Covid-19, which infected 81 residents of her nursing home.

"People say that work kills, for me work kept me alive, I kept working until I was 108," she told reporters in April last year. "People should help each other and love each other instead of hating. If we shared all that, things would be a lot better.”