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12th May 2024
11:31am BST
A man known as the 'dirtiest in the world' on account of not washing for several decades, died at the age of 94 just a couple of months after people in his village persuaded him to have a bath.
Amou Haji, who managed to go for more than 60 years without cleaning himself due to fears that being clean would make him sick, died in the village of Dejgah, southern Iran in October of 2022.
According to Iranian state media, he died just months after villagers persuaded him to go to a bathroom to wash,
Haji – whose name is actually an endearing moniker for an elderly person - used to enjoy smoking animal faeces from an old pipe and enjoyed a diet of rotten porcupine and slurped water from a rusty oil can.
In a documentary about his bizarre life called The Strange Life of Amou Haji, Haji said he chose to become dirty after suffering emotional problems as a young man. He then became isolated.
He avoided soap and water, and had an aversion to fresh food.
His skin was that caked in muck that an author who visited him in Iran claimed that he 'blended into the barren landscape' and 'resembled a rock' when he sat still.
Haji lived an isolated life, though locals are said to have built him a brick shack to shelter in after noticing that he had been sleeping in a hole in the ground.
Haji had been badgered by residents for years to clean up his act, but he stuck to his guns and always refused.
According to local media, he finally succumbed to the pressure and had a wash a few months before his death - but as he had feared, he became sick shortly afterwards and passed away.
His life was immortalised in a short documentary film called ‘The Strange Life of Amou Haji’ in 2013.
If Haji’s claims of 60 years without a wash is true, it would make him the world’s dirtiest man.
An Indian man called Kailash Singh, 67, claimed to have not showered for 39 years, trailing Haji by 21 years.
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