An Iranian man nicknamed the “dirtiest man in the world” for not bathing in decades has died at the age of 94.

“Amou Haji”, an endearing nickname for an elderly person, reportedly died on Sunday in the village of Dejgah in the southern province of Fars.

Haji, covered in soot and living in a cinder-block shack, was reported by local media not to have bathed with water or soap in more than 60 years.

Villagers said he had experienced “emotional setbacks in his youth” that led him to refuse to wash.

In 2014, the Tehran Times reported that Haji would eat roadkill, smoke a pipe filled with animal excrement, and believed that cleanliness would make him ill.

Irna news agency reports that a few months ago, villagers had persuaded him to wash for the first time. The news agency quotes a source as saying “for the first time a few months ago, villagers had taken him to a bathroom to wash”.

It was gathered that a short documentary film titled ‘The Strange Life of Amou Haji’ was made about his life in 2013.