In Mozambique A 39-year-old Evangelical church pastor died after trying to fast for 40 days because he wanted to imitate Jesus, as written in the Gospel of Matthew. Francisco Baraja, founder of the Church of the Holy Trinity, died after being taken to a hospital in the city of Beira in a very critical condition. After 25 days without water or food, he lost so much weight that he could no longer walk. And only thanks to the urging of his relatives and believers, he accepted hospitalization in the health facility, where he was diagnosed with severe anemia and collapse of the digestive organs. The doctors tried everything to save him, refilled water and food in liquid form, but by then it was too late and the 39-year-old died on Wednesday.
Religious fasting, it was not the first time for the pastor Barajah was also a French teacher in the city of Mexico in the central province of Manica between Mozambique and Zimbabwe. According to members of the church he founded, it wasn’t the first time the pastor and his followers had fasted, but he had never gone so far in time. According to Brother Marques Manuel Barajah, the medical diagnosis of the death is incorrect. “The truth is, my brother had low blood pressure,” she said.
A fairly common practice causing fatalities As the BBC writes, fasting for 40 days, as it says in the Bible, is a fairly common practice not only in Mozambique. Reported deaths from “religious fasting” have reached significant numbers: in 2015, a Zimbabwean man died after 30 days; The same happened in Ivrea that same year, while in 2006 a woman died after a similar fast in London.