Hunger sect in Kenya: Forensic scientists investigate horrifying suspicions

Last week it was announced that dozens of people in Kenya would be victims of an obscure religious leader. Under his watch, his followers allegedly starved themselves – to be closer to Jesus.

The local media dubbed the case the “Shakahola Forest Massacre”. Since April 21, Kenyan authorities have been exhuming body after body from the vast estate of former pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie in the middle of the Shakahola Forest in eastern Kenya. More than a hundred emaciated bodies have been excavated in this way – many probably of children.

While forensic pathologists began autopsying the first bodies on Tuesday, the suspect was in court — and not alone.

The bodies – and a terrible suspicion

The first 40 bodies autopsied earlier this week paint a gruesome picture: Not everyone on Mackenzie’s property starved to death, as was initially thought. Some were strangled, others suffocated.

And: According to rumors, organs were removed from the victims. To get to the bottom of this suspicion, the forensic experts during the autopsies would not only clarify the identities of the victims, but also whether the deceased still had all their organs, as Kenyan Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki announced at a media conference:

He went on to say, “If one of our people is missing organs, we will announce it to the world.”

Furthermore, the President of Kenya, William Ruto, announced a commission of inquiry with the aim of creating structures in the faith sector. His goal is for the country’s more than 4,000 registered churches to monitor each other and report abuse to authorities.

The court

Mackenzie lay on the quay in the Kenyan town of Malindi on Tuesday. The former television pastor and founder of the Good News International Church, which was formally closed in 2019, has been associated with strange deaths of followers for years. He was finally arrested in April after a local human rights organization Haki Africa led authorities to the graves on Mackenzie’s property.

After the preacher closed his church and settled in the Shakahola Forest with his followers, the former priest is said to have propagated that self-imposed starvation is the only direct path to God and Jesus. Because even if he was no longer presiding over a church at this point, he still had a prophetic power that made Jesus seem to point him in the right direction, as he revealed to the Kenyan newspaper “Nation.”

Mackenzie, dressed in a pink and black jacket and brown pants, was led into court by police officers on Tuesday along with eight co-defendants. The small courtroom was packed with relatives of the dead on the first day of the trial, writes Africa News.

It soon becomes clear that the case will be transferred to the Supreme Court in Kenya’s second largest city, Mombasa Mackenzie and his accomplices are accused of terrorism and that can only be negotiated there, prosecutor Vivian Kambaga told AFP.

But it’s not just Mackenzie who has to answer for this case. The priest Ezekiel Odero is also in the dock in Malindi. But while Mackenzie was no longer leading a church and living with his followers in the Shakahola Forest, Odero actively preached at the New Life Prayer Center and church. This church attracts thousands of people from all over the country, writes Africa News. Accordingly, many of his followers appeared outside the courtroom on Tuesday and prayed loudly for the release of their religious leader.

Odero is investigated for connections to Mackenzie. According to Africa News, dozens of parishioners in his church were said to have died under suspicious circumstances, court documents show. It also says that the two priests have a “common history of business investments” – including the television station on which Mackenzie first preached, which was taken over after he moved to the Odero Forest. The court states that the television channel serves to spread “radicalized messages”.

However, according to “Africa News,” Odero distanced himself from Mackenzie and his teachings in court. He is still expected to spend several more years behind bars.

(yum)