KENYA: AUTOPSIES BEGIN ON OVER 100 DEAD BODIES OF CULT MEMBERS WHO STARVED TO DEATH

Mon 01 May 2023:

More than 100 bodies connected to a religious cult whose leader is believed to have told members to starve themselves to death in order to be the first to enter paradise are being examined by pathologists in Kenya, according to officials.

It is known that 139 members of the Good News International Church, headquartered in eastern Kenya’s Shakahola Forest, have died. Since April 21, authorities have discovered 101 bodies in shallow graves, while eight cult members were discovered alive but later passed away. 44 people have been saved thus far.

Children account for most of the bodies recovered so far, Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said on Friday.

“We are going to be doing the autopsies in teams,” Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor, who is leading the postmortem examinations, said at a news conference on Monday, the day the autopsies began.

Kindiki said the autopsies will look at all possibilities, including whether some bodies had missing organs.

Hassan Musa, a Kenya Red Cross regional manager, said that by Friday 410 people had been reported missing by their loved ones, including 227 children under the age of 18 years. So far more than 100 bodies have been discovered.

Cult leader Paul Mackenzie has been in police custody since April 14, held alongside 14 cult members. Local media have reported that he is refusing food and water.

Mackenzie has made no public comment. The Reuters news agency spoke to two lawyers acting for Mackenzie, but both declined to comment on the accusations against him.

On Sunday, President William Ruto said he would appoint a judicial commission of inquiry this week to investigate what happened in Shakahola.

Hussein Khalid, a member of Haki Africa, the rights group that tipped off the police to the actions of the church, told the AFP news agency that he believed some church members were still hiding from the authorities in the nearby forest.

How cult starved his mother

Two years ago, Issa Ali’s mother took all her belongings and left her family to join followers of the charismatic church leader Paul Mackenzie Nthenge in the Shakahola forest in south-east Kenya.

“He told them that’s where Jesus’ second coming will happen,” the 16-year-old said.

When he saw his mother again earlier this year, he said she was “nearly unrecognisable”, and had gone from being well built to shockingly frail.

“She told us it could be the last time we would see her, that her earthly life had lost all meaning and that she would be going to heaven soon. We tried to stop her, but couldn’t – she wasn’t herself at all,” Ali said.

The next time he heard of his mother was when his friends told him last week that she had been found dead in shallow graves in the forest, although her death has not yet been officially confirmed to him.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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