Police have managed to recover the bodies of 47 Kenyans who are believed to have starved themselves to death on the guidance of a fundamentalist Kenyan religious sect priest, Paul Makenzie Nthenge, near the country’s coastal city of Malindi.
Religious leader Paul Makenzie Nthenge has already been arrested and he is going to be brought to court, according to local media. The police in the country believe that Paul Makenzie Nthenge has preached to the devotees of his sect that they can meet Jesus Christ by starving, and according to that sermon, a significant number of his followers may have starved to death.
The arrested priest Paul Makenzie Nthenge has named three forest villages as Nazareth, Bethlehem and Judea and told his followers to fast in them, according to the country’s media.
The BBC reports that the bodies of people who died fasting in this way are buried in shallow pits in the Shakahola forest, and there are cases where all family members are buried in one pit. The police say that more mass graves may be found in the near future as excavation work is going on. Home Affairs Minister Kithure Kindiki told the BBC that the 800-acre Shakahola Forest has already been designated as a crime scene and heavily guarded.
About 15 devotees who were in hell until they met Jesus were recently rescued by the intervention of another religious sect and at the same time the country’s attention was drawn to this.
DNA samples from the bodies will be used to determine whether the victims died of starvation, according to Kenyan daily, The Standard.