MOSCOW, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - A 112-year-old Somali man has married a 17-year-old girl, BBC reported on Thursday.

The wedding took place in the village of Guriceel in central Somalia, one of the poorest countries in the world.

Ahmed Muhamed Dore already has 18 children from five wives. He said he would like to have more children with his new teenage wife, Safia Abdulleh, who is young enough to be his great-great-granddaughter.

"Today God helped me realize my dream," Dore said after the wedding ceremony in the region of Galguduud.

"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love; and then we agreed to marry," Dore continued, adding that he had waited for his wife to grow up first before proposing to her.

Safia's family said their daughter is "happy with her new husband," a man who survived Italian colonization, British occupation, Siad Barre dictatorship and Somalia's dissolution.

Somali historians say that the wedding was the first of its kind in Somalia for over a century.