The bodies of three children and their parents have been found in a cemetery in Kenya, along with more than 50 other Christian cult members who believed they would “meet Jesus” in heaven if they starved themselves.
Kenyan police today continue their search in the Shakahola forest in the east of the country for victims of the ‘starvation cult’. Officials have so far recovered 58 bodies.
The death toll, which has risen steadily over the past two days due to excavations in the forest, could rise further as the Kenya Red Cross has reported 112 people reported missing to a search agency it runs.
Five members of the same family – three children and their parents – were found in one shallow grave. They’re probably not around.
The sect was called the Good News International Church and its leader, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested following a tip that suggested shallow graves containing the bodies of at least 31 of his followers.
Police and local residents load the exhumed bodies of victims of a religious cult into a truck in the village of Shakahola, near the coastal town of Malindi, in southeastern Kenya, on Sunday.
Kenyan homicide detectives and forensic experts from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) examine exhumed bodies from several shallow mass graves of suspected members of a Christian cult after they starved themselves to death on Sunday
Kenyan homicide detectives and forensic experts from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) examine bodies exhumed from several shallow mass graves on Sunday
Dozens more bodies were exhumed over the weekend and a 325-hectare forest area was declared a crime scene as authorities try to understand the true magnitude of the so-called ‘Shakahola Forest Massacre’.
Overalls-clad police are now scouring the grounds for more burial pits and possible survivors of the cult.
There are fears that some members are hiding from authorities in the surrounding bushland and risk death if not found soon.
A number of people have already been rescued and taken to hospital in Malindi on the Indian Ocean coast.
A human rights group that tipped off police about the movement and its extreme practices said at least one of the rescued refused to eat despite clearly being in physical distress.
Cult leader Mackenzie had told his followers to starve themselves to “meet Jesus” in heaven.
The sect was called the Good News International Church, and its leader, Paul Mackenzie (pictured during a previous trial in March), was arrested after a tip that suggested shallow graves containing the bodies of at least 31 of his followers.
The exhumed bodies of victims of a religious cult were laid out on Sunday in the village of Shakahola, near the coastal town of Malindi, in southern Kenya.
A photo shows an abandoned house in the forest where buried bodies have been unearthed in Shakahola, outside the coastal town of Malindi on Sunday
The Kenya Red Cross said 112 people had been reported missing to support staff in Malindi.
The cult leader, Makenzie Nthenge, turned himself in to police and was charged last month, according to local media, after two children died of starvation in the care of their parents.
He has since been released on 100,000 Kenyan shillings (£560) bail.
The grim case has received national attention and the government has pointed to the need for tighter controls on religious denominations in a country where rogue pastors and fringe movements are involved in crime.
Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki, who announced he will visit the site on Tuesday, described the case as “the clearest violation of the constitutionally enshrined human right to freedom of worship.”
But efforts to regulate religion in the predominantly Christian country have been hotly contested in the past as attempts to undermine constitutional guarantees for separation of church and state.
Sects are common in Kenya, which has a largely religious society.
Police and local residents load the exhumed bodies of victims of a religious sect into a truck in the village of Shakahola, near the coastal town of Malindi, on Sunday.