- A 39-year-old pastor in Mozambique died after attempting to emulate Jesus' 40 day fast.
- Francisco Barajah's organs failed by the 25th day of the fast, and he was sent to hospital, The BBC reported.
A pastor in Mozambique has died after attempting to go 25 days without food or water in a bid to fast like Jesus in the Bible, per multiple media reports.
Francisco Barajah, the 39-year-old founder of the Santa Trindade Evangelical Church, died in a hospital in Mozambique's capital, Beira, on Wednesday, The BBC reported.
He had been attempting to emulate Jesus' 40-day fast from the Bible, per the outlet.
By the time Barajah was administered medical aid, his digestive organs had failed and he was diagnosed with acute anemia, or when the body doesn't have enough healthy red blood cells to carry sufficient oxygen, The BBC wrote.
His family and followers saw that Barajah had fallen sick after 25 days of his fast, and insisted that he be admitted to hospital, where he was given serums to get rehydrated, per The BBC.
Staff at Hospital Central da Beria attempted to reintroduce liquid foods to Barajah's diet, but his organs were in such a bad state that it hurt when he tried to eat, reported Noticias Online, a Portuguese-language news outlet in Mozambique.
Barajah had also lost so much weight he couldn't stand or bathe himself, the outlet wrote.
Barajah died at the hospital, The BBC reported.
His brother, Marques Manuel Barajah, said Barajah had fasted, but claimed that he suffered from low-blood pressure, objecting to the medical diagnosis, wrote the outlet.
It's not immediately clear how Barajah survived for 25 days without water. The Guinness World Record for the longest amount of time a human has survived without food and water is 18 days, when an Austrian teenager was put in a holding cell in 1979 and forgotten by police.
The Bible also doesn't explicitly state if Jesus abstained from water during his 40-day fast. In their accounts of the "Temptation of Christ," the gospels of Matthew and Luke say Christ was "hungry" and "ate nothing."
Barajah isn't the first devout Christian to die in an attempt to fast like Jesus. In 2006, a 34-year-old woman in east London died after going 23 days without food or water while trying to mimic Christ's fast.
Hospital Central da Beria did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.