WASHINGTON: Marian Robinson, mother of former US first lady Michelle Obama, who provided support and stability, especially during the eight years of Barack Obama’s presidency, died on Friday, the Obama and Robinson families said. She was 86.
Fondly called the “first grandma,” Robinson played a pivotal role in helping care for her granddaughters, Malia and Sasha Obama, during their early years at the White House.
“With a healthy nudge, she agreed to move to the White House with Michelle and Barack. We needed her. The girls needed her. And she ended up being our rock through it all,” the family statement read, adding she died “peacefully” on Friday morning.
Born in 1937 on Chicago’s South Side, Robinson was one of seven children. Her parents separated during her teenage years and she witnessed the extreme highs and lows of race relations in the United States.
Her father was not allowed to join a union or work for larger construction firms due to the color of his skin and hence “grew mistrustful of a world that seemed to have little place for him,” the family said its statement. Yet, her daughter and son-in-law made it to the White House when Barack Obama became the first Black US president.
The glamor of the White House was never a great fit for Robinson, according to the family.
Rather than hobnobbing with Oscar winners or Nobel laureates, she preferred spending her time upstairs with a TV tray, in the room outside her bedroom with big windows that looked out at the Washington Monument, the family statement said. It added that she made great friends “with the ushers and butlers, the folks who make the White House a home.”
Robinson got married in 1960 and had two children, including the former first lady. She also worked as a teacher and a secretary, the family said.
During her eight years at the White House, the family said she would often sneak outside the gates to buy greeting cards at nearby stores and sometimes other customers would recognize her saying she resembled the first lady’s mother.
“Oh, I get that a lot,” she would smile and reply.
Marian Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama, dies at 86
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Marian Robinson, mother of Michelle Obama, dies at 86
Sri Lanka hospital releases 22 rescued Iranian sailors
- Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law
COLOMBO: Sri Lanka discharged from hospital 22 Iranian sailors who were plucked from life rafts after their warship was sunk by a US submarine, officials said Sunday.
The sailors were treated at Karapitiya Hospital in the southern port city of Galle since Wednesday after the IRIS Dena was torpedoed just outside Sri Lanka’s territorial waters.
“Another 10 are still undergoing treatment,” a medical officer at the hospital told AFP.
He said the bodies of 84 Iranians retrieved from the Indian Ocean were also at the hospital.
Those discharged from hospital overnight had been taken to a beach resort in the same district.
Sri Lankan authorities said the survivors from the Dena were being handled according to international humanitarian law, and the government had contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross for assistance.
The island is also providing safe haven for another 219 Iranian sailors from a second ship, the IRIS Bushehr, that was allowed to berth a day after the Dena was sunk.
Sailors from the Bushehr have been moved to a Sri Lanka Navy camp at Welisara, just north of the capital Colombo, and their ship taken over by Sri Lanka’s navy.
Sri Lanka announced it was taking the Bushehr to the north-eastern port of Trincomalee, but an engine failure and other technical and administrative issues had delayed the movement, a navy spokesman said.
Sri Lanka has denied claims that it was under pressure from Washington not to allow the Iranians to return home, and said Colombo will be guided solely by international law and its own domestic legislation.
A US State Department spokesperson said the disposition of the Bushehr crew and Iranian sailors rescued at sea was up to Sri Lanka.
“The United States, of course, respects and recognizes Sri Lanka’s sovereignty in the handling of this situation,” the spokesperson told AFP in Washington.
India, meanwhile, said Saturday that it had allowed a third Iranian warship, the IRIS Lavan, to dock in one of its ports on “humane” grounds after it too reported engine problems.
The three ships were part of a multi-national fleet review held by India before the war in the Middle East started last week.
“I think it was the humane thing to do, and I think we were guided by that principle,” Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said on Saturday.
The Lavan docked in the south-west Indian port of Kochi on Wednesday.
“A lot of the people on board were young cadets. They have disembarked and are in a nearby facility,” Jaishankar said.
