Sun 14 May 2023:
Search teams looking through Kenya’s Shakahola forest, where mass graves linked to a cult were discovered last month, uncovered 22 more dead, raising the death toll to more than 200. police have said.
“Our forensic team was able to exhume 22 bodies today,” Rhodah Onyancha, the regional police chief, told reporters in Shakahola on Saturday.
At least 201 bodies have been found since mid-April during investigations into a cult run by Paul Mackenzie, a pastor who leads the Good News International Church.
Paul Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, was accused of ordering his followers to starve their children and themselves to death so they could go to heaven before the end of the world, which he predicted to be on April 15.
The taxi driver-turned-preacher was denied bail on Wednesday by a Kenyan court.
Onyancha said one more suspect had also been arrested, bringing the total number of those detained over the deaths to 26.
Kenyan President William Ruto appointed a commission of inquiry into the deaths of more than 100 people believed to have starved themselves to death, while a court ordered that the cult leader remain in prison.
The commission of inquiry will examine whether administrative or intelligence lapses contributed to the deaths.
Presidential spokesman Hussein Mohamed said Ruto had also appointed a task force to review regulations governing religious organisations.
SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES
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