Kenya exhumes 32 bodies as outcry grows over starvation cult deaths

Malindi: Thirty-two bodies have been exhumed in southeastern Kenya in the past week, in a tragedy that is sparking fresh criticism of authorities who had vowed to crack down on extremist sects after hundreds of members of a doomsday cult died two years ago.

The Kenyan government and local residents have linked the bodies discovered in the village of Kwa Binzaro to the same Christian sect blamed for the deaths of over 400 people in the nearby Shakahola Forest in 2023.

Seven more bodies were recovered on Thursday, bringing the total since exhumations began last week in the remote, forested area to 32, government pathologist Richard Njoroge told reporters.

Search operations continued on Friday, with workers in white hazmat suits and blue gloves combing through dense thickets with shovels and hoes.

Kwa Binzaro lies around 30 km (18 miles) from Shakahola, where prosecutors allege that cult leader Paul Mackenzie ordered his followers to starve themselves and their children so that they could go to heaven before the world ended.

Mackenzie, who faces charges of murder and terrorism, has denied the accusations against him.

Earlier this month, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen linked the graves discovered in Kwa Binzaro to Mackenzie's cult, saying that survivors rescued from the village had said the self-styled pastor was praying for them from prison.

In the wake of the discoveries in Shakahola, President William Ruto's government pledged to tighten oversight of religious organizations and strengthen community-based surveillance.

11 suspects arrested

Writing in the Star newspaper on Thursday, human rights activist Hussein Khalid said the latest deaths showed the failure of a top-down, security-centric approach that had eschewed engagement with local communities.

"What we are witnessing is a betrayal. A betrayal of the most sacred duty of any state - to protect the lives of its citizens," Khalid said.

Spokespeople for Ruto, the national government and the police service did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The commissioner of Kilifi County, where Kwa Binzaro is located, said this week that 11 suspects had been arrested in the case.

Relatives of people who joined Mackenzie's cult now find themselves waiting again for DNA tests that could tell them whether their loved ones are among the dead.

Eight members of William Ponda Titus' family joined the cult, beginning in 2015. The bodies of four, including his mother and one of his brothers, were found in Shakahola. Four remain missing, and the family thinks they relocated to Kwa Binzaro.

“This thing has hurt me very much because right now it is only me and my father. I am sick since I got the news,” he told Reuters outside the family's home in the nearby town of Malindi.

His cousin, Michael Ruwa, complained that the government had been largely silent about the discoveries in Kwa Binzaro.

“The matter is being taken very lightly," he said. "We ask the government to treat the matter seriously because it is people who have been lost in there. Not animals."