| Siem Bene M’Bokolo | |
 | |
| Birth: | 16 August 1906? Mboundou, Senegal |
| Death: | 18 August 2014 Dakar, Senegal |
| Age: | 108 years, 2 days? |
| Country: |  SEN
|
| Centenarian | |
Siem Bene M’Bokolo (16 August 1906? — 18 August 2014) was a Senegalese centenarian.
Biography[]
Siem Bene M’Bokolo claimed that he was born in Mboundou, Senegal on 16 August 1906. He was 12 years old when he was recruited to enroll in the 83rd Senegalese battalion under French command in 1918, at the height of the final moments of the First World War. Mr M’Bokolo and two of his brothers served at the historical and decisive Battle of Reims, also called the Second Battle of the Marne (15 July – 6 August 1918), where French forces gave a fatal blow to the last major German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. His brothers didn't survive the battle. He was the only survivor of the 83rd Senegalese battalion to return to his native home. He served for 18 months under French command and went on to participate in France’s 1919 Occupation of the Rhineland, where between 25,000 and 40,000 colonial soldiers took part of this force. He later returned home, where he married his brothers widows and leaved behind him 16 grandchildren.
Siem Bene M’Bokolo died in Dakar, Senegal two days after his claimed 108th birthday on 18 August 2014.[1][2] He was Africa’s last surviving WWI veteran and possibly the World’s last witness to the horrors of what some have described as the ‘War to End All Wars’.