A cult in Kenya has starved to death at least 85 of its members, including many children. In the past week, police have exhumed at least 73 bodies of people believed to have starved to death, from shallow graves in Kenya’s eastern coastal region. Earlier, additional cult members were discovered dying of starvation, too late to save them. (If people eat in the last day before they are about to die, it is typically too late to save them. Their bodies can’t process the nutrients properly, or in time to refuel their bodies and save their life.)
The architect of the mass deaths is Pastor Paul Mackenzie, founder of the Good News International Church, who brainwashed his followers, telling them to abandon “earthly life” and meet at his 810-acre farm in the village of Shakahola for a fast “to meet Jesus.” The adults may have died voluntarily, but their children were presumably denied food regardless of their wishes.
Mackenzie, a televangelist, founded his church in 2003. Since then, he has often angered officials by telling kids to drop out of school. In 2019, he closed his existing church and moved to Shakahola with some of his followers.
Mackenzie, who has often claimed to have prophetic powers and to have seen Jesus, said he received a divine revelation to do this.
He instructed his followers to quit their jobs, drop out of formal schools, stop feeding on “worldly food”, and not seek medical treatment in hospitals when sick. They met on Saturdays under a tree from 9am to 5pm for “life lessons.”
He told followers that their fast would count only if they gathered together, and offered them his farm as a fasting site. He told them not to mingle with anyone from the “outside” world if they wanted to go to heaven and told them to destroy all government ID, including national IDs and birth certificates.
A government intervention began on April 13 after two children were starved and suffocated to death by their parents on Mackenzie’s advice on March 16 and 17. On March 23, Mackenzie was arraigned in court and was released on 10,000 Kenyan shillings ($74) cash bail. He had been arrested before in 2019, also relating to the deaths of children, but was released on bond. Both cases are still in court.
Investigations located 16 emaciated people in Shakahola, four of whom died before reaching a local hospital.
At least 73 bodies have been exhumed since the search began; over 30 people were rescued and admitted to the hospital for severe malnutrition; 39 known members of the cult are still missing, a figure that is likely to rise, because locals said 300 people lived at the Shakahola farm.
The search is still continuing, not just for bodies but also for survivors of the cult, some of whom are still refusing to eat. Followers note that they were told to starve to avoid apocalyptic damnation.
Some of the cult members were reportedly captured trying to escape the fast, and then were killed and buried – one of the bodies recovered from the mass graves was of a person whose corpse was not emaciated.
Kenyan President William Ruto on Monday declared that the cult leader belongs in prison as “what is being witnessed in Shakahola is akin to terrorism”.
Amason Kingi, head of Kenya’s Senate and a former governor of the county in which this occurred, asked, “How [did] such a heinous crime, organised and executed over a considerable period of time, escape the radar of our intelligence system? How did evil of such an astounding magnitude take place without being detected? How did this ‘pastor’ gather so many people, indoctrinate, brainwash and starve them to death in the name of fasting and then bury them in a forest without being detected?”
Kenyan Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki called the deaths a “massacre”, promising that cult leaders would be prosecuted. He also seemed to want to use this tragedy as a pretext to expand state control over churches and mosques in Kenya. “While the state remains respectful of religious freedom, this horrendous blight on our conscience must lead not only to the most severe punishment of the perpetrators of the atrocity on so many innocent souls, but tighter regulation of every church, mosque, temple or synagogue going forward,” Kindiki said.
Pastor Mackenzie surrendered to the police on April 14 and is now in custody pending investigations. He has since refused to eat and refused to speak with police. “I am shocked about the accusations placed before me,” he had said after earlier being released on bail last month. “I closed my Good News International church in Malindi in August 2019 and it’s important for people to accept that. I even sold the equipment there and the chairs as well.”
He blamed Kenyan media for supposedly taking his words out of context. “The other time I made a sermon on earthly education being evil and I was taken to court for telling children not to go to school. This was not the case. It is a prophecy and it depends on how you take it. I can preach but I do not force the teachings on anyone.”
