‘World’s dirtiest man’ dies in Iran at 94 a few months after first bath

World's Dirtiest Man: Amou Haji did not wash himself up for more than half a century and died on Sunday in the village of Dejgah, IRNA news agency reported.

An Iranian man who was called the "dirtiest man in the world" for not taking a bath for decades has died at the age of 94, state media reported. Amou Haji did not wash himself up for more than half a century and died on Sunday in the village of Dejgah, IRNA news agency reported.

World's Dirtiest Man: Amou Haji (uncle Haji) sits on the outskirts of the village of Dezhgah. (AFP)

Amou Haji had avoided showering over fears of "getting sick", the agency quoted a local official as saying. But "for the first time a few months ago, villagers had taken him to a bathroom to wash," the report further claimed.

Other reports said that the local villagers believed that the hermit had undergone “emotional setbacks in his youth” that could have resulted in some sort of a trauma that led him to refuse to wash.

A short documentary film titled "The Strange Life of Amou Haji" was made about his life in 2013, the reports also noted.

Amou Haji could often be found roaming around the streets covered in soot and he lived in a shack which was built by local villagers. The hermit also believed that fresh food could make him sick and he would smoke a pipe filled with animal excrement, the Tehran Times reported.