The death toll in an investigation linked to a Kenyan cult that practiced starvation to “meet Jesus Christ” exceeds 400, after 12 more bodies were found on Monday, a senior official says.
“Total death toll: 403,” Coast Regional Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha tells AFP in a message, following the latest round of exhumations in the Shakahola forest, where cult leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie allegedly urged followers to starve to death.
“Exhumation continues tomorrow,” Onyancha adds, as investigators search for more graves in the forest, where the first victims — some dead, others alive but weakened and emaciated — were discovered on April 13.
According to government autopsies, starvation appears to have been the main cause of death, although some victims, including children, were strangled, beaten or suffocated.
Mackenzie, a former taxi driver-turned-preacher, has been in police custody since mid-April.
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