OLOT, Spain — Maria Branyas Morera, the world’s oldest living person who survived two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, the 1918 flu pandemic, and COVID-19, has died at the age of 117, her family announced on Tuesday.

According to Azeri-Press News Agency, citing CBS, Branyas passed away peacefully in her sleep, as confirmed by her family in a post on social network X. “Maria Branyas has left us. She died as she wished: in her sleep, peacefully and without pain,” the family wrote. “We will always remember her for her advice and kindness.”

Branyas had been residing in the Santa Maria del Tura nursing home in Olot, Catalonia, for the past two decades. On Tuesday, she posted a message indicating that she felt “weak” and that the “time is near,” urging her followers not to cry or suffer for her. Guinness World Records recognized her as the world’s oldest person in January 2023 after the death of French nun Lucile Randon at 118.

Following Branyas’s death, Japan’s Tomiko Itooka, born on May 23, 1908, and now 116 years old, becomes the world’s oldest living person, according to the U.S. Gerontology Research Group.

Branyas contracted COVID-19 in 2020 shortly after celebrating her 113th birthday, but she recovered fully. Her youngest daughter, Rosa Moret, once attributed her mother’s longevity to genetics, noting that Branyas had never been hospitalized or suffered serious injuries. In March 2023, she celebrated her 116th birthday surrounded by friends, fans, and her daughter at the Santa Maria del Tura residence.

Born on March 4, 1907, in California, Branyas moved with her family to Spain at the age of eight. She married Joan Moret in 1931 and had three children, 11 grandchildren, and 13 great-grandchildren. Despite facing many challenges, including the loss of her father to tuberculosis during the voyage from the U.S. to Spain, Branyas remained optimistic, advising others to “never, ever, become a bitter person no matter what.”