‘More than 20 our bodies’ exhumed in Kenyan hunger cult investigation

More than 20 our bodies have been exhumed as a part of an investigation right into a hunger cult in Kenya, in response to experiences.

Police started exhuming stays on Friday from greater than a dozen suspected graves within the east of the nation thought to include the stays of followers of a fringe Christian sect who believed they might go to heaven in the event that they starved themselves to loss of life.

On Thursday, murder detectives marked out patches of earth with sticks and yellow tape in Shakahola forest in Kilifi county, close to the situation the place police rescued 15 members of the Good News International Church final week, in response to footage broadcast by Citizen TV.

Police started exhuming our bodies on Friday, mentioned Charles Kamau, a detective within the close by city of Malindi.

The alleged chief of the church, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested following a tip-off that additionally advised the existence of shallow graves belonging to at the very least 31 of his followers.

Mackenzie has denied any wrongdoing.

Police mentioned the 15 rescued worshippers had been advised to starve themselves to loss of life so they may meet their creator.

Four of them died earlier than they reached hospital.

Titus Katana, a former member of the church, helped police determine the graves.

“We have shown the graves to the police, and in addition, we have saved the life of a woman who only had a few hours left, otherwise she’d also be dead,” Mr Katana advised Citizen TV.

Matthew Shipeta from Haki Africa, a human rights group, mentioned he had seen at the very least 15 shallow graves within the forest.

Helen Mikali, the supervisor of a youngsters’s dwelling who was additionally serving to investigators, mentioned she had visited a number of close by villages the place mother and father and youngsters had disappeared.

“Personally I have visited about 18 children’s graves,” Ms Mikali advised Citizen TV. She didn’t say how she knew the graves contained the stays of kids.

Last month police arrested and later launched Mackenzie for encouraging the mother and father of two boys to starve and suffocate their youngsters to loss of life.

During a court docket look in that case, Mackenzie mentioned he was unaware of the occasions that led to the deaths of the 2 boys, claiming he was the goal of hostile propaganda from a few of his former colleagues, The Kenyan Standard newspaper reported.