Investigators have discovered 17 more bodies on Tuesday in a forest where a cult was suspected of practising mass starvation, bringing the total number of victims to 90, including children.
There are fears that more bodies will be discovered in Shakahola forest, where cult leader Paul Mackenzie Nthenge allegedly told his followers that starvation was the only way to God.
Children are among the most recent victims of Kenya’s “Shakahola Forest Massacre,” with search teams in white overalls still on the ground inland from Malindi on the Indian Ocean coast.
The shocking discovery has shocked the nation, and President William Ruto has promised a crackdown on “unacceptable” religious movements as new details emerge.
Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki warned that the worst is yet to come.
“We don’t know how many more graves, how many more bodies, we are likely to discover,” he told reporters, adding the crimes were serious enough to warrant terrorism charges against Nthenge.
He claimed that 34 people had been discovered alive so far in the vast forest, where police were alerted to the cult’s activities and a crime scene had been established.
“The majority of the bodies exhumed are children,” an unnamed forensic investigator told AFP.
Authorities at the state-run Malindi Sub-County Hospital warned that the morgue was running out of space to store the bodies and was already operating at capacity.
