A 94-year-old Iranian man who earned the “world’s dirtiest” moniker has reportedly died, months after he took his first bath in more than 70 years.
According to the Iranian news agency IRNA, the nonagenarian Amou Haji, or “Uncle Haji” died on Sunday in Dezhgah village in the southern province of Fars.
Amou lives alone in the Iranian desert outside the village. There have been various reasons why he avoided baths for more than half a century.
While local officials claimed that Haji, who was never married, avoided showering over fears of “getting sick”, the local villagers, on the other hand, believed that the hermit had undergone “emotional setbacks in his youth” that might have caused some sort of a trauma that led him to refuse to wash, even by water.
One time, his neighbours tried to bathe him in the local river, but after realizing the purpose of the trip, Haji threw himself out of the car.
But “for the first time a few months ago, villagers had taken him to a bathroom to wash,” after he fell ill, IRNA reported.
He would often be found roaming around the streets covered in soot and living in a cinder-block shack, which was built by local villagers.
The 94-year-old hermit survived by eating rotting carcasses as he believed that fresh food could make him sick. He would smoke a pipe filled with animal excrement, the Tehran Times reported in 2014. And was also pictured smoking several cigarettes at a time.
According to local reports, Haji’s funeral is scheduled for Tuesday night in Farashband City, Fars.
Amou believes that he has survived for so long by keeping himself dirty.
Following Haji’s death, the unofficial title of “world’s dirtiest man” would go to a 67-year-old Indian man from western Maharashtra state who also had not bathed for more than 30 years.
