‘Oldest’ Ugandan Alarika Alo dies at 109

📍 Uganda 🇺🇬 population figures (Feb 2021)
✳ Aged 0-14yrs – 46%
✳ Aged 10-24yrs – 34.5%
✳ Aged 15-64yrs – 52%
✳ Aged 65+ – 2%
✳ Life expectancy 64yrs

Tororo, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Alarika Alo, who at 109 years is one of the oldest Ugandans, passed on today in Tororo.

“Very sad. Grandma finally rested at about 1pm here at uncle’s home in Tororo municipality,” her granddaughter Veron Opoya confirmed on phone.

The Independent first learnt of Alo in January last year, when Veron, a head-teacher in Tororo, posted her story on facebook. Her National Identity card has her year of birth at 1913.

According to her granddaughter, Alarika (Ulrika) had only two boys in her life, Simeon Ochieng and Christopher Columbus Opoya (RIP), but is now surrounded by dozens of grand, great grand children, and their children.

Veron is daughter of Columbus Opoya. She says Alarika, a Japadhola of the Amori-kagulu clan, has 27 grandchildren, 104 great grand children and 10 great-great grand children.

There will be a requiem mass for her at Sacred Heart Tororo on Friday, and she will be buried on Saturday in in Nagoke village, Soni Lakwari in Kirewa  sub-county.

The other living Ugandans older than Alarika Alo when the story broke in January last year, were Norah Langa, a resident of Lamit Kapim Cell in Pager Division, Kitgum District said to be 113 and John Wafula Ogweyo from Bukhooli in Iganga who was said to be 110.

The world’s oldest verified living person is Japanese Kane Tanaka at age 119 (born 2 January 1903).

Europe’s oldest verified person is French nun Sister Andre, who is 118. She was born Lucile Randon on February 11, 1904.

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