The report said the death toll in the ‘Shakahola massacre’ in a forest in southeastern Kenya, where a sect leader was gathering for a fast to ‘meet Jesus’, has risen to 226 after the discovery. Showing 15 more bodies on Wednesday. Police believe most of the bodies discovered near the coastal town of Malindi are those of cultist Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, a former taxi driver and self-proclaimed ‘pastor’ of the Good News International Church led by him.
Following Wednesday’s operations, “14 bodies were exhumed and one was found in the forest,” the district’s prefect Rhoda Onyancha said, adding that another was found alive by the rescue team. .
Autopsies of the first 112 bodies show that most of the victims died of starvation, probably after listening to the preaching of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, who would be charged with “terrorism”.
Forensic executive director Johansen Oduor said a number of victims, including children, had been strangled, beaten or suffocated.
Autopsies shows “missing body parts on some bodies,” the Criminal Investigation Department said in a court document seen by GIN on 9 May, referring to “well-coordinated trafficking of human organs involving several actors.
Minister of Interior Kithure Kindiki calls for caution on the issue, saying it was “a theory we are investigating”. “Reports of the morgue are still being completed and we don’t want to pre-empt the case,” he said.
Authorities arrested Paul Mackenzie after turning in himself on 14 April, after police discovered the first victims in the Shakahola forest. 63 mass graves have been find since then. Influential Kenya’s pastor, Ezekiel Odero, was arrested on April 28 in connection with the case and later released on bail.
He is under investigation as there may be bodies of some of his disciples among the bodies found in Shakahola.
More than 20 of his bank accounts have been frozen.
The massacre caused a stir in the religious East African nation and rekindled debate over the regulation of religious worship in Kenya, a predominantly Christian country with 4,000 “church’s” officially
Working group has been established by President William Ruto to “review the legal and regulatory framework governing religious organizations”.
