More than a hundred adherents have been hypnotized to commit suicide in two Kenyan religious cults which the country’s president William Ruto likens to terrorism
Kenyan President William Ruto on Monday, April 24 compared the dozens of starvation deaths among the followers of the pastor of Good News International Church in the south of the country, Paul Makenzi with the results of terrorist acts, as the new death toll rose to 73. He insisted that Paul Makenzi, who is now in police custody, should be in prison.
“What we are seeing is akin to terrorism, Mr. Makenzi pretends and postures as a pastor when in fact he is a terrible criminal, Ruto said.”
Makenzi was arrested on suspicion of telling his followers to fast to death in order to meet Jesus. A group of emaciated people were rescued alive, but some of them later died. Authorities then turned their attention to dozens of shallow graves marked with crosses on Makenzi’s 800-acre ranch.
The total death toll now stands at 73, with 26 new bodies exhumed, Malindi sub-county police chief John Kemboi told the Associated Press.
Kemboi said investigators had received reinforcements and were able to cover more grounds. At least four people died after they and others were discovered starving at the Good News International Church since mid April.
A tipoff from members of the public led police to raid the pastor’s property in Malindi, where they found 15 emaciated people, including the four who later died. The followers said they were starving on the pastor’s instructions in order to “meet Jesus.”
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.
Police had been told there were dozens of shallow graves spread across Makenzi’s farm and digging started on Friday, April 21.
The Kenyan Red Cross Society on Sunday said 112 people had been reported missing at a tracing desk set up at Malindi, where the pastor’s main church was located.
Makenzi remains in custody and a court allowed investigators to hold him for two weeks as a probe into the deaths continues.
The pastor has been arrested twice before, in 2019 and in March 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.
The grim case has gripped national attention and the government has flagged the need for tighter control of religious denominations in a country where rogue pastors and fringe movements have been involved in crime.
Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki, described the case as “the clearest abuse of the constitutionally enshrined human right to freedom of worship”.
But attempts to regulate religion in the majority-Christian country have been fiercely opposed in the past as attempts to undermine constitutional guarantees for a division between church and state.
Last year, the body of a British woman who died at the house of a different cult leader while on holiday in Kenya was exhumed, the family’s lawyer said. Luftunisa Kwandwalla, 44, was visiting the coastal city of Mombasa when she died in August 2020, and was buried a day later, but her family has claimed foul play.
The inspector general for Kenya’s police, Japhet Koome, told reporters that homicide detectives and pathologists had exhumed 11 more bodies from a series of shallow graves.
Many of the victims are believed to have been members of the Good News International Church, a “suspected religious cult,” according to a statement from Mr. Koome. The small sect, based near the town of Malindi, is led by a pastor, Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, who was arrested this month.
Mr. Mackenzie was arrested on April 14 after the authorities rescued more than 15 people from his property, four of whom were in critical condition and died soon after, according to media reports.
He was arraigned several days later by a judge in the Malindi Law Courts, who said the pastor would be held for two weeks as the police conducted their investigation.
Body bags were arranged on the ground as forensic experts and homicide detectives exhumed the bodies of suspected members of the Good News International Church on Saturday.
“The recent discoveries are still ongoing,” said an official in Kenya’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she was not allowed to speak publicly. “So until the police finish and declare they have exhausted the land and declare there are no more bodies the matter won’t be taken to court.”
The authorities approached Mr. Mackenzie’s property after they received a tip from residents about people who were starving on the land, according to Charles Kamau, the head of criminal investigations in Malindi.
Videos taken from the crime scene show officials in hazardous material suits dragging body bags and scouring areas of forest cordoned off by yellow tape.
Kenya’s interior minister, Kithure Kindiki, called the discovery a “massacre” in a statement posted to Twitter on Sunday, April 23, adding that it exposed the “clearest abuse of the constitutionally enshrined human right to freedom of worship.”
Security teams had been deployed to help block off 800 acres of forest for the investigation, Mr. Kindiki added in his post. A team of experts deployed by the National Police Service also included forensic investigators and homicide detectives.
Mr. Mackenzie had been arrested in late March as well, at that time in connection with the deaths of two children. In a statement released by Mr. Koome on Monday, the children “were allegedly starved to death on instructions issued by Mackenzie that they observe fasting till death in order to meet their maker.”
“We called for a post-mortem on the deaths at the time, but nothing came of it,” said Walid Sketty, 28, a member of Haki, a human rights group that is working to assist the victims.
Meanwhile, another Kenyan pastor, Ezekiel Odero has been arrested over suspected deaths at his church in southern Kenya, police confirmed on Thursday, April 27.
Deaths have allegedly taken place at the New Life Prayer Center and Church and reported in several morgues and institutions in the coastal town of Kilifi, regional police commissioner Rhodah Onyancha said.
“We have also taken action and closed the prayer center going forward,” Onyancha added.
Kenya’s interior minister Kithure Kindiki has also confirmed the detention of the famous evangelical pastor, saying he was being “processed to face criminal charges related to the mass killing of his followers.”
“The said Church has been shut down. The over 100 people who were holed up at the premises have been evacuated and will be required to record statements,” Kindiki wrote on Twitter.
Odero’s arrest coincides with the ongoing investigation into the over 100 people who starved themselves to death in the hope of meeting Jesus Christ, as per the instructions of cult leader and preacher Mackenzie Nthenge of the Good News International Church in Kilifi.
Mackenzie, who once worked as a taxi driver, is currently in police custody and is expected to appear in court on May 2, along with other 13 suspects.
He was also arrested in March after being accused of the deaths of two children in similar circumstances but was later released on bail.
The controversial pastor founded the Good News International Church in 2003 with the aim to “nurture the faithful holistically in all matters of Christian spirituality as we prepare for the second coming of Jesus Christ through teaching and evangelism,” the cult’s website said.
So far, authorities have not indicated whether the cases of Nthenge and Odero are related.
Culled from Reuters
