Donald Trump's mother-in-law Amalija Knavs dies at 78

Amalija Knavs, the mother of former first lady of the United States Melania Trump, has passed away at the age of 78, after suffering an illness for the past few days, according to Melania's social media post on Tuesday, CBS News reported.

Former United States president Donald Trump previously revealed that Amalija had been hospitalised last week although Melania did not announce the cause of death.

However, last month, people observed that Melania had been absent from the Trump family’s Christmas festivities, raising questions regarding her whereabouts.

During his New Year's Eve event at Mar-a-Lago, Trump addressed his wife's disappearance from the Christmas festivities and family gatherings and revealed that she was taking care of her mother "who is very ill".

He told guests: "Melania — great First Lady, so popular, the people love her — she's now in a hospital with her mother. Her mother, Amalija, is very ill, but hopefully, she'll be recovering."

Trump revealed that his mother-in-law was recovering in a Miami hospital and that her illness was a "very tough one."

He also wished that she "gets better as quickly as possible".

Amalija Knavs was born in Slovenia in 1945, and welcomed Melanija Knavs — the ex-US first lady Melania — with her husband, Viktor, in 1970, when Slovenia was still under Communist rule.

Melanija attended high school in the Slovenian capital, Ljubljana, and changed her name to Melania Knauss when she started modelling.

She married then-real estate mogul Donald Trump in 2005, and their son Barron was born in 2006. Meanwhile, her parents Amalija and Viktor became US citizens in 2018, while their son-in-law was president and spent the last few years living at Mar-a-Lago, People reported.