Questions have been raised about how Mackenzie managed to evade law enforcement despite a history of extremism and previous legal cases. ![]() "I am afraid that we have many more graves in this forest, and therefore it leads us to conclude that this was a highly organised crime." "What we have here in Shakahola is one of the worst tragedies our country has ever known." The exhumed bodies of victims of a religious cult are laid out in the village of Shakahola, near the coastal city of Malindi, in southern Kenya Sunday, April 23, 2023.Ī multi-agency team was exhuming at least 20 mass graves believed to contain "several victims," he added. "We have resumed the exhumation exercise because we believe that there are more bodies inside this place," said Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki, who visited the site on Tuesday. The church's online content also features posts about the end of the world, impending doom and the supposed dangers of science.Īnd there are frequent warnings of an omnipotent satanic force that has supposedly infiltrated the highest echelons of power around the world.Exhumations resumed on Tuesday after being suspended last week because of bad weather. Much of Pastor Mackenzie's preaching relates to the fulfilment of Biblical prophecies about Judgement Day. Pastor Mackenzie also encouraged mothers to avoid seeking medical attention during childbirth and not to vaccinate their children. ![]() In an interview with Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper a few weeks ago, Pastor Mackenzie also denied he had forced his followers to starve themselves.īut Pastor Mackenzie preached against education, saying that it was satanic, after receiving a "revelation from God", Mr Katana told the New York Times.Įxplaining his reasoning for leaving the cult, Mr Katana, who is also assisting in a police investigation against the pastor, said his teachings had become too "strange". Pastor Mackenzie, who is currently in police custody, said he closed down his Good News International Church four years ago after nearly two decades of operation.īut the BBC had uncovered hundreds of his sermons still available online, some of which appeared to have been recorded after this date. More than 600 people who are reported to be members of the doomsday cult allegedly led by Pastor Paul Mackenzie are still missing. Official autopsies of some of the bodies in the expansive Shakahola farm, near the coastal town of Malindi, found signs of starvation, suffocation and beatings. It is alleged that the cult followers were told they would reach heaven faster if they starved to death. "Then they wrapped them in blankets and buried them, even the ones still breathing," he was quoted as saying. Mr Katana - who is helping police with the investigation - also described to the Sunday Times the alleged brutal treatment of the children, saying they were shut in huts for five days without food or water. ![]() Women and men were next to follow the suicide plan, Titus Katana said. Police investigating an apparent mass suicide have so far exhumed 201 bodies in a forest in the nation's southeast.Ī former deputy preacher of the cult told the New York Times that children were killed first, ordered "to fast in the sun so they would die faster." Family members of those who died in the cult have been mourningĬhildren were targeted as the first to be starved to death in the final days of a Christian doomsday cult in Kenya, according to fresh accounts emerging.
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