World's oldest man aged 131 discovered living with wife 69 years younger than him

Civil servants in Brazil say they have discovered
the world’s oldest man - a 131-year-old dad-of-
three living with a wife 69 years his junior. The
Guinness Book of Records recognises 112-year-
old Yasutaro Koide from Japan as the oldest
person alive.
And Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died
aged 122 in 1997, holds the record for the world’s
longest living person.
Social security workers in Acre in the north of
Brazil today caused furore by publishing photos
of OAP Joao Coelho de Souza alongside a birth
certificate dated March 10 1884.
The document showed he was born in the city of
Meruoca in Ceara nearly 2,000 miles to the east of Acre.

A colleague of a civil servant who made a routine
visit to confirm he was still alive and therefore
eligible for his pension posted the information on
his Facebook .
He called on the state government to confirm the
find and register Joao for the Guinness Book of
Records.
Brazilian papers today said he lived with a wife
aged 62 and a granddaughter aged 16 in a village
called Estirao do Alcantara, a 30-minute boat ride
away from Sena Madureira, a municipality in the
centre of the state of Acre.
His daughter Cirlene Souza, aged only 30 which
would mean if his age was right that Joao was
101 when she was born, told one paper: “He has
days when he is lucid but others when he doesn’t
even recognise his children.
“He was very small when he came to work
in Acre extracting rubber. “He has been with
my mum for more than 40 years and
depends on others for everything.”
Responding to doubts about her dad's age, she
added:
“You hear everything, people that criticise
and say it’s a lie and others that admire
the fact someone can live so long.
“It’s sometimes offends me because
everything is documented and the
documents have already been examined by
experts at to see if they’d been falsified
and nothing abnormal was found.”
Cirlene said Joao suffered a stroke six years ago
but continued to eat three times a day.
His favourite dishes are rice, fish and meat and
the only thing he turns his nose up at is a local
bean-based dish called feijao.
Kennedy Afonso is the social security worker who
posted photos of Joao and his birth certificate
taken by a colleague on his Facebook on January
11.
He said:
“I’ve asked one of his children if anyone’s
interviewed him and to my astonishment no-one has yet

. “The question ‘where are
our historians’ immediately springs to mind.
“According to a son he is still quite lucid
and has a great story to tell.
“I present to you Jose Coelho de Souza,
who came to Acre when he was 11.
“I appeal to the state government and the
local government in Sena Madureira to
determine with the competent bodies
whether this is true so they can claim a
place in the Guinness Book of Records for
the oldest man on the Earth. And he’s from
our region.”