Pathologists in Kenya have reportedly begun examinations on more than one hundred victims that are tied to a religious cult. According to officials, the leader of the cult allegedly encouraged his followers to starve themselves to death in order to be the first people to enter paradise.
One hundred nine members of the Good News International Church, which had its headquarters in the Shakahola Forest in eastern Kenya, are reported to have perished in the conflict. Since April 21, law enforcement officials have recovered 101 bodies from shallow graves, while eight members of the cult were discovered alive but later passed away. 44 people have been brought to safety as of this moment.
According to statements made by Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki on Friday, the majority of the bodies found so far have been those of children. “We are going to be doing the autopsies in teams,” Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor stated at a news conference on Monday, the day that the autopsies began. Oduor is leading the postmortem exams.
Oduor stated that the government was currently gathering DNA samples from those individuals who had reported missing relatives and that the matching procedure would take at least a month to complete. Kindiki stated that the autopsies will investigate all of the possibilities, including the possibility that some of the bodies lacked organs.
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The killings amount to one of the biggest disasters associated with cults in recent history, and the toll is expected to grow higher due to the fact that more than 300 people have been reported missing by the Kenyan Red Cross. The startling finding is being referred to as the Shakahola Forest Massacre by officials working for the government.
He told the AFP news agency that he suspected several church members were still hiding from the authorities in the adjacent forest. Hussein Khalid is a member of Haki Africa, the rights group that tipped off the police to the actions of the church. Haki Africa is the group that tipped off the police to the actions of the church. According to Khalid, “this exemplifies the scope of this problem, which unequivocally demonstrates that there are still many people who are still out there and possibly passing away with each passing second.”
He demanded that the government send the military to assist in the search in order to locate the believers before they starved themselves to death. He hoped that this would be possible. Paul Mackenzie, the leader of the cult, and 14 other cult members have been in police custody since April 14. The local media has claimed that he is refusing both food and water.
Mackenzie has not provided any sort of statement to the public. The news agency Reuters called two attorneys representing Mackenzie, but both of them declined to comment on the allegations that have been made against him. On Sunday, President William Ruto stated that he would create a judicial panel of inquiry to probe the events that took place in Shakahola this coming week.
