Kenya starvation cult death toll rises to 73, 178 people still missing
Written by VOA
Kenyan authorities have recovered more bodies of members of the Good News International Church, who are believed to have starved themselves to death.
The death toll is expected to rise as the
Kenya Red Cross said 178 members of the church are still missing. Kenyan
security forces and residents of the coastal town of Malindi continue
to recover the bodies of people who were following the teachings of Good
News International Church pastor Paul Makenzie.
Kenya's
inspector general of police, Japhet Koome, said an additional 11 bodies
were exhumed from Makenzie’s land in Shakahola forest on Monday. He said
29 people were rescued.
Japhet Charo, who lives the village of
Furunzi where Makenzie preached to his followers, said the community is
saddened by the senseless death of its members.
"There
is sadness in everyone, not just those who went to church but also
those who did not,” Charo said. “They are upset about this whole
situation that we have never seen or heard of. People are wondering what
kind of benefit a situation like this brings. The pastor said children
will die first, followed by mothers and men. We're not sure how such
deaths would benefit him."
Makenzie was arrested more than a week
ago after four of his followers died of starvation, thinking it was a
way to meet Jesus, according to reports. Authorities have recovered 50
bodies from Shakahola forest since then.
Charo began attending
Makenzie’s church in 2006, a year after it opened. The father of eight
said he knew Makenzie when he was a taxi driver in the late 1990s and
would frequently wash his vehicle. The 44-year-old left the church in
2017 after his children began to follow his anti-school teachings and
refused to attend classes.
"There were rules in the church that
women had to cut their hair and not wear makeup, and he encouraged
children not to go to school because there was nowhere in the Bible that
said children had to go to school,” Charo said. “When it came to that
kind of teaching, I noticed some political games being played in the
church and decided not to attend."
Kenyan President William Ruto said there was no difference between the pastor's actions and those of terrorists.
"What
we are seeing in Kilifi in Shakahola is akin to terrorists,” Ruto said.
“There is no difference between Mr Makenzie, who pretends and postures
as a pastor when in fact, is a terrible criminal."
Families
continue to search the forest for their loved ones. According to the
Kenya Red Cross, which assists with rescue and psychological efforts,
the number of missing people has increased.
Hassan Musa, the
Kenya Red Cross regional manager for the Coast region, said there were
still 178 people missing and the organization is working closely with
the government and other stakeholders to see if they can identify the
missing while also dealing with the number of bodies.
“We working
with the county government to see if we can enhance the capacity of the
morgue,” Musa said. “What we are doing is to see if we can have a
mobile morgue so that we can accommodate numbers that are increasing day
by day."
Ruto has directed security agencies to monitor the activities of religious leaders who promote dangerous ideologies.
Death toll in Kenyan starvation cult rises to 73, police say
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/24/death-toll-in-kenyan-starvation-cult-rises-to-58-police
Kenyan President William Ruto said the religious cult mass deaths were ‘akin to terrorism’.
Kenyan police have now recovered 73 bodies, mostly from mass graves in a forest in eastern Kenya, thought to be followers of a Christian cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves, authorities said.
The death toll, which has repeatedly risen as exhumations have been carried out, could rise further. The Kenyan Red Cross said 112 people have been reported missing to a tracing and counselling desk it has set up at a local hospital.
Followers of the self-proclaimed Good News International Church had been living in several secluded settlements in a 324-hectare (800-acre) area within the Shakahola Forest.
The death toll stands at 73, with 26 new bodies exhumed on Monday, Malindi sub-county police chief John Kemboi told the Associated Press news agency.
Kemboi said investigators had received reinforcements and were able to cover more ground.
The cult’s leader, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested on April 14 following a tip-off that suggested the existence of shallow graves containing the bodies of at least 31 of his followers. National Police chief Japhet Koome said 14 other cult members were in custody.
Mackenzie was arraigned on April 15 at Malindi Law Courts, where the judge gave police 14 days to conduct investigations while he was kept in detention. Kenyan media have reported that he is refusing food and water.
There has been no comment from any representative for Mackenzie so far.
“What we are seeing … is akin to terrorism,” Kenya’s President William Ruto said on Monday.
Ruto said he had instructed law enforcement agencies to thoroughly investigate the matter as a criminal case not linked to any religion.
Ruto, elected in 2022, was hyped as the country’s first evangelical Christian president and has not been shy about his faith, openly praying and weeping in churches before his election.
He has nominated several pastors into parliament and government agencies like the anticorruption commission.
Mackenzie had been arrested twice before — in 2019 and in March of this year — in relation to the deaths of children. Each time, he was released on bond, and both cases are still proceeding through the court.
Local politicians have urged the court not to release him this time, decrying the spread of cults in the Malindi area.
Cults are common in Kenya, which has a largely religious society.
