NAIROBI, Kenya May 9 – 21 more bodies were exhumed from Shakahola forest where the exercise resumed Tuesday.
This raises the number of bodies so far exhumed to 133 with many more still believed to be buried in the dense forest where people were urged to starve to death in a religious cult.
Coast Regional Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha says as many as 500 people are reported missing, including from villages around the forest.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki who was back to the forest Tuesday has vowed that no victim will be left in the forest dead or alive, after two people were rescued.
Pastor Paul Mackenzie who is accused of indoctrinating his church followers to starve to death is in custody waiting to face terror-related charges as the state intensifies a crackdown on related activities.
Autopsies on corpses found in mass graves linked to the religious cult have revealed missing organs and raised suspicions of forced harvesting, investigators said even as exhumations resumed.
The discovery of mass graves last month near the Indian Ocean coastal town of Malindi has stunned the deeply religious Christian-majority country in what has been dubbed the “Shakahola forest massacre”.
Police believe most of the bodies belong to followers of self-styled pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie who is accused of ordering them to starve to death “to meet Jesus”.
While starvation appears to be the main cause of death, some of the victims — including children — were strangled, beaten, or suffocated, according to chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor.
Court documents filed on Monday said some of the corpses had their organs removed, with police alleging the suspects were engaged in forced harvesting of body parts.
“Post mortem reports have established missing organs in some of the bodies of victims who have been exhumed,” chief inspector Martin Munene said in an affidavit filed to a Nairobi court.
It is “believed that trade on human body organs has been well coordinated involving several players”, he said, giving no details about the suspected trafficking.
Munene said that Ezekiel Odero, a high-profile televangelist who was arrested last month in connection with the same case and granted bail on Thursday, had received “huge cash transactions,” allegedly from Mackenzie’s followers who sold their property at the cult leader’s bidding.
The Nairobi court ordered the authorities to freeze more than 20 bank accounts belonging to Odero for 30 days.
– ‘Highly organised crime’ –
A total of 133 people have so far been confirmed dead, Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said Tuesday after arriving in Malindi to supervise the resumption of exhumations, which were suspended last week because of bad weather.
“Search and rescue efforts for persons suspected to be holed up in the thickets and bushes have been going on,” Kindiki said, adding that 65 people have been rescued so far.
“What we have here in Shakahola is one of the worst tragedies our country has ever known,” Kindiki told reporters.
A multi-agency team was exhuming at least 20 mass graves believed to contain “several victims”, he added.
“I am afraid that we have many more graves in this forest, and therefore it leads us to conclude that this was a highly organised crime.”
Questions have been raised about how Mackenzie managed to evade law enforcement despite a history of extremism and previous legal cases.
The former taxi driver turned himself in on April 14 after police acting on a tip-off first entered Shakahola forest, where some 50 shallow mass graves have now been found.
Prosecutors are asking to hold the father of seven, who founded the Good News International Church in 2003, for another 90 days until investigations are completed.
Senior principal magistrate Yusuf Shikanda said he would rule on the request on Wednesday.
President William Ruto has vowed a crackdown on Kenya’s homegrown religious movements in the aftermath of the saga, which has highlighted failed past efforts to regulate unscrupulous churches and cults.
