NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The dying toll linked to a doomsday cult in Kenya hit 201 Saturday after police exhumed 22 extra our bodies, most of them bearing indicators of hunger, in keeping with the coast regional commissioner.
The our bodies are believed to be these of followers of a pastor primarily based in coastal Kenya, Paul Mackenzie. He’s alleged to have ordered congregants to starve to dying with a view to meet Jesus.
More than 600 individuals are nonetheless lacking.
Mackenzie, who was arrested final month, stays in custody. Police plan to cost him with terrorism-related offenses.
Hundreds of our bodies have been dug up from dozens of mass graves unfold throughout his 800-acre property, situated within the coastal county of Kilifi.
Mackenzie insists that he closed his church in 2019 and moved to his property in a forested space to farm.
Autopsies carried out on greater than 100 our bodies final week confirmed the victims died of hunger, strangulation, suffocation and accidents sustained from blunt objects.
Local media retailers have been reporting circumstances of lacking inside physique organs, quoting investigators within the case.
Mackenzie, his spouse and 16 different suspects will seem in court docket on the finish of the month.
Coast regional commissioner Rhoda Onyancha on Saturday stated the full variety of these arrested stood at 26, with 610 folks reported as lacking by their households.
It is unclear what number of survivors have been rescued so removed from the search and rescue operations on Mackenzie’s huge property. Some of them had been too weak to stroll once they had been discovered.
Cults are frequent in Kenya, which has a spiritual society.
Police throughout the nation have been questioning different spiritual leaders whose teachings are believed to be deceptive and opposite to primary human rights.
President William Ruto final week fashioned a fee of inquiry to analyze how a whole bunch of individuals had been lured to their deaths on the coast and suggest motion on establishments that didn’t act.
Mackenzie had prior to now been charged with the deaths of kids in his church in a case that’s ongoing in court docket. Residents close by had raised the alarm after his followers moved to the forested space.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”