• Members of the press were barred from going into the Shakahola forest by police as the operation hits it’s sixth day.
• Police officers said the land is a disturbed area and an operation zone.
• On Tuesday alone, 17 bodies were exhumed
Members of the press were on Wednesday morning barred from going into the Shakahola forest by police as the operation hits it’s sixth day.
The 800-acre land is allegedly owned by cult leader Paul Mackenzie, who has been urging his followers to fast to death with the promise that they will meet Jesus.
Police officers said the land where police have since Friday, April 21, exhumed more than 90 bodies buried in shallow graves is a disturbed area and an operation zone.
Pastor Paul Mackenzie of Good News International Church and his associates of a suspected cult in which several people have so far been confirmed dead rode swiftly past the mud houses and glided between trees and shrubs.
On Tuesday alone, 17 bodies were exhumed.
And before running off to bask in their horrific exploits, they would pray and send scouts to get reports and intelligence of any other dead victims to bury as ordered by Mackenzie.
The collaborators are among some of the 13 people in custody at the Malindi police station alongside Mackenzie.
In one area far away from Mackenzie’s house in the expansive Shakahola forest, more than 80 bodies have been recovered in the nearly 50 by 100 space.
This has been so far the biggest area bodies have been found as detectives are yet to start exhuming other marked graves.
Human traffic on the Shakahola forest routes is minimal, which makes it easy for someone to conduct the kind of activities that were ongoing in a cultic group without being noticed.
The Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki indicated that what happened at Mackenzie’s church was ‘a tip of the iceberg’.
“The government admits this should not have happened. We have opened a formal inquiry on another religious organisation based in Kilifi County. We are getting leads that perhaps what was being done at Mackenzie’s was just the tip of the iceberg. The net has been cast wider to all other associates and collaborators of Mackenzie’s evil,” CS Kindiki said when he visited the area.
Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki (centre) speaks after visiting the mass-grave site in Shakahola, outside the coastal town of Malindi, on April 25, 2023.
It has been established that a famous Kilifi pastor, his wife and his deputy were questioned by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) over suspicious activities in their popular church.
Also, a Malindi court allowed homicide detectives permission to exhume all graves within Mackenzie’s 800-acre farm no matter how long it takes.
This is after the investigating officer went to court yesterday seeking open orders.
