Is THIS the world’s oldest man? 4ft 2in orphan & retired brickie who can’t read celebrates staggering birthday milestone

A TINY retired brick layer claims to be the oldest person on Earth after apparently celebrating his 125th birthday.

Marcelino “Mashico” Abad Tolentino, who is just 4ft 2in tall, beamed at his care-home party in Cochachinche, central , to mark the milestone.

Mashico has toiled in the Peruvian countryside his entire life, splitting his time between bricklaying and .

He lived a simple existence, and never married and or had children.

The Peruvian says he was born way back on April 5, 1900 – though this has not been verified by the Book of Records.

The record board currently recognises 116-year-old Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas from Brazil as .

And it will be difficult to check Mashico's claim as the OAP doesn't have a birth certificate.

But his age is in no doubt in Peru, where the government has issued him a national ID featuring the 1900 birth date.

Last year, the government attributed Mashico's longevity to a life lived “among the tranquillity of the flora and fauna of Huanuco”.

The statement said he had developed a “healthy way of life and inner peace, reflected in his good and friendly personality”.

Mashico was born in the remote Chaglla District – which sits at nearly 10,000ft – and was orphaned at just seven years old.

His parents tragically died while trying to cross a river.

And he never attended school growing up, because the journey was too far.

Instead, he began working the fields, rearing animals and selling produce.

Mashico says one of the secret to his staggering age is eating plenty of fruit and lamb.

Chewing coca leaves has also been a life-long habit – something popular amongst locals to give them an boost while labouring.

His diet also involved plenty of herbs and medicinal plants he gathered in the wilderness.

Dolores Pérez – the cook at his care home – told local media: “He always asks for avocado in the mornings for breakfast.

“He can’t live without his avocado.”;

Rosemberg Valverde Cruz, who brought Mashico to the world's attention in 2019, said: “He has survived two World Wars, pandemics, and although his story is going viral, he spent more than a century without access to electricity.

“He does not know the internet, mobile phones or instant food, he kept to nature, living off the fruits of his crops such as oranges, bananas and avocados, as well as small farmyard animals and cooking with firewood.

“He has been an orphan since childhood. Although he does not speak fluently and can no longer hear well, he says that his parents ‘were taken away by the river' when he was seven years old.”

The official world record for the world's oldest person is currently held by 116-year-old Brazilian nun Inah Canabarro Lucas, who took the crown when Tomiko Itooka of Japan .

And the official oldest living man is , also of , at 112.

If Mashico's age is verified, he would smash both those records, as well as that of the oldest person ever to have lived.

The oldest officially-verified age a human has reached is 122 years and 164 days.

The phenomenal life was lived by a French woman called Jeanne Calment.