16 Years Without a Meal: Muluwork Ambaw’s Unbelievable Story

16 Years Without a Meal: Muluwork Ambaw’s Unbelievable Story

Muluwork Ambaw remembers her last meal. She says it was red lentil stew with injera, eaten when she was just 10 years old.

After that, according to Ambaw, something changed. Food stopped attracting her, and hunger became a feeling she no longer experienced.

Today, she claims she has lived for 16 years without eating a meal.

Her story sounds impossible at first hearing. Yet Ambaw has continued to attract attention because she says she has maintained a normal life despite her extraordinary claim.

She cooks for her family. She grows vegetables. She watches other people eat. She simply says she does not join them.

Ambaw is from Jimma, Ethiopia, where her story first attracted attention several years ago before spreading beyond the country.

Her account gained renewed international interest after American travel creator Drew Binsky visited Ethiopia in 2024 and spent time meeting Ambaw and people who knew her.

The visit gave more people an opportunity to hear her story directly, but it did not settle the medical question surrounding it.

Ambaw says she has undergone medical examinations in different places, including Ethiopia, India, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Some reports have claimed that medical examinations found no food in her digestive system. That, however, cannot establish that she had gone 16 years without eating.

There is another part of her story that makes it even more difficult to explain. Ambaw says she does not drink water either.

That claim takes the story beyond an unusual fasting experience and into territory that conflicts sharply with established human physiology.

The human body can survive for a considerable period without food when it has access to water and stored energy. Water deprivation is fundamentally different.

The body constantly loses water through breathing, sweating and urination. Without adequate replacement, dehydration affects the blood, kidneys, brain and other vital organs.

Scientific evidence does not support a person surviving 16 years without water.

There are documented cases of exceptionally long fasts, but they do not provide evidence for Ambaw’s claim.

One famous case involved Angus Barbieri, who went more than a year without solid food under medical supervision. He continued taking fluids and was medically monitored throughout the fast.

Ambaw’s story also includes pregnancy. Reports say she received glucose infusions during pregnancy and could not breastfeed her baby. The child was reportedly fed with formula.

She has also claimed that she rarely uses the toilet because she does not eat or drink.

For Ambaw, the explanation is spiritual rather than scientific.

She has attributed her condition to God, describing it as God’s work.

But faith cannot independently establish what the human body is capable of doing. Neither can personal testimony, however sincere it may appear.

That distinction is important because extraordinary stories can easily become accepted as facts once they are repeated often enough.

Ambaw’s story has travelled through international media, social media and online videos. Each retelling has brought more attention, but public attention is not the same as scientific verification.

Drew Binsky’s visit offered another perspective. He spoke with people around Ambaw and documented his experience, giving viewers an opportunity to see the woman behind the extraordinary claim.

Still, an observation made over a few days cannot prove what happened to someone’s body over 16 years.

That would require long-term, independently documented medical evidence.

So, what should we make of Muluwork Ambaw? Her story sits somewhere between personal testimony and a medical mystery.

She says she has lived without food and water for 16 years, while established science says such survival is not possible without water.

That leaves the most extraordinary part of her story unresolved.Perhaps the most responsible way to tell it is also the simplest:

Ambaw says she has not eaten or drunk water for 16 years, but there is no publicly established scientific evidence proving that claim.

For now, the woman from Jimma remains at the centre of one of the strangest stories to emerge from Ethiopia. Her last meal, she says, happened when she was 10.

Sixteen years later, the question surrounding that meal remains: how could she possibly have survived?