religion
“Hunger sect” in Kenya: 112 bodies have already been recovered
The police exhume the bodies of victims of a Christian sectarian cult. Authorities received a tip in mid-April that followers of a local pastor were starving to death in the wooded area in hopes of “meeting Jesus”. photo
© Uncredited/AP/dpa
In mid-April, authorities received a tip that followers of a local pastor were starving to death in a wooded area. First they come across 15 people who are still alive – then mass graves.
Around four weeks after the first indications of a “hunger sect” in the Kenyan coastal region of Malindi, 112 bodies have been recovered and autopsied. Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki, who visited the work of the police, doctors and rescue services on site yesterday, assumes that many more graves will be found in the Shakahola forest area. Twenty mass graves are currently being opened, he said.
Authorities in Malindi received a tip in mid-April that followers of a local pastor were starving to death in the wooded area in hopes of “meeting Jesus”. The following day, police found 15 starving people in a remote settlement in the forest, 6 of whom were in critical condition. According to the police, four of them died during the rescue measures. Later, the police combed the wooded area for mass graves.
So far, 25 suspects have been arrested, said Kindiki. Among those arrested is the alleged cult leader, the pastor of a free church. So far, according to Kindiki, 65 members of the sect have been saved alive, two of them were rescued on Tuesday.
Police officers continue to comb the more than three square kilometer forest area that has been declared a security zone. There is also a night curfew in the area. The investigations and the search for other graves would probably take a long time, said Kindiki. With the cordoning off of the area, the dignity of the victims and their relatives should also be protected.