The death toll of the Kenyan doomsday cult hit 201 this weekend. Searchers for victims and survivors discovered 22 more bodies on Saturday, according to government officials. The bodies are believed to be those of the followers of pastor Paul Mackenzie. He allegedly ordered his congregants to starve to death in order to reach heaven.
Over 600 people are still reportedly missing.
Coast Regional Commissioner, Rhodah Onyancha, says the forensic team exhumed 22 bodies, with no reports of “any rescue”. The search is continuing in the Shakahola forest in Kenya’s southwest.
Onyancha says one more suspect was arrested. This brings the total number of detainees over the deaths to 26. Paul Mackenzie was arrested last month and remains in custody. Police intent to charge him with terrorism-related offenses. Mackenzie, his wife and 16 other suspects are set to appear in court at the end of the month.
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‘Trapped in huts for days without food or water’
Hundreds of bodied have been dug up from mass graves spread across Mackenzie’s 800-acre property. Autopsies on more than 100 bodies, last week, show the victims died of starvation, suffocation and injuries from blunt objects.
Last Friday, 29 bodies were discovered, including those of 12 children found in one grave.
An ex-deputy preacher of the cult says the children were killed first. Titus Katana told the New York Times that they were ordered to “to fast in the sun so they would die faster“. He adds that women and men were next to follow the suicide plan.
Katana also described to the Sunday Times the alleged brutal treatment of the children. He says they were trapped in huts for days without food or water.
Then they wrapped them in blankets and buried them, even the ones still breathing
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Katana is now helping the police with the investigation. Mackenzie allegedly also encouraged mothers to not seek medical helps during childbirth and not o vaccinate their children. When explaining his reasoning for leaving the cult, Katana says the pastor’s teaching become too “strange”.
