World’s oldest pupil dies at 90
Kimani Maruge, a Kenyan national, dies from stomach cancer at a pensioners’ home.
A great-grandfather who had outlived 10 of his 15 children, Maruge took a belated opportunity to educate himself when Mwai Kibaki, the Kenyan president, introduced free primary schooling across the east African nation in 2003.
From his tent at an agricultural showground housing 14,000 displaced people, Maruge walked at least four kilometres each morning to the Kapkenduiywo primary school.
“I came here when fighting broke out – they started burning houses and I was scared because I thought that they would kill me,” Maruge said.
Years later, members of his Kikuyu tribe who had moved into western Kenya to farm were attacked by gangs after the disputed re-election of Kibaki in December 2008.
Maruge was forced to abandon school in 2008 and moved to the Cheshire Home after he was displaced with hundreds of thousands of others by the post-electoral violence.