The authorities in Panama reported that a pregnant woman and her 5 children between 1 and 11 years old, in addition to a 17-year-old girl, were allegedly murdered and buried in a pit by members of a religious sect acting in a remote indigenous area, and that the suspects in the massacre are being held.

On Wednesday, local television reported that seven bodies were found in a pit located in a secluded area of ​​the Ngäbe Buglé region, where 15 people were injured yesterday, injured and beaten, who were kidnapped by alleged members of a sect that subjected them to exorcist rites.

"The Public Ministry confirms the location of a grave with 7 bodies, corresponding to 6 minors of 1, 3, 9, 9, 11 and 17 years. In addition to an adult woman who was pregnant for approximately 4 to 6 months, mother of 5 of the minors, "the court said in its Twitter account.

Ten alleged pastors of the "La Nueva Luz de Dios sect" were arrested by special forces of the National Police and transferred Wednesday from the Alto Terrón indigenous village to the city of Santiago de Veraguas.

The Prosecutor's Office said Thursday that "all the alleged perpetrators of the incident have been apprehended and will be taken before the Court of Guarantees in Bocas del Toro between tomorrow and Saturday" and that the authorities had prevented another 15 people from being killed. These were rescued and sent to hospital centers, "the Prosecutor added in their messages on the social network.

The superior prosecutor of Bocas del Toro, Rafael Baloyes, said that the bodies found in the pit show clear signs of torture, and that among those arrested for the massacre is the grandfather of the 5 children killed . "All the perpetrators are indigenous, it is more one of the perpetrators is the grandfather of the children, that is, they knew each other, they were part of the same community," said the prosecutor in a video released by the Public Ministry.

According to the testimonies collected, the pregnant woman and her 5 children were taken to a building that served as a church in the village to "celebrate the cult and slaughter them," a fact that would have happened last Monday.

"A neighbor was also killed, she was a minor," said Baloyes in reference to the seventh victim, 17, found in the pit, who would have dug the members of this sect who had been "practicing for more than 3 months" cult in that area of ​​the region.

Another 15 people moored in the church

The prosecutor said the locals claimed that the rituals became violent last Saturday, when one of the alleged pastors, who did not identify, said he had received a divine message.

That is why the authorities consider that they saved the lives of the 15 people they identified tied and beaten in the church, because everything indicated that they would be subjected to the same rite that led to the death of the other seven.

In the makeshift church " a dead goat was located , machetes (...) was a rite (...) it was to take their lives if they did not repent of their sins," the prosecutor added.

The bodies of the victims, who at the time of the autopsies performed on Wednesday recorded "some degree of rot" since they had spent "two days since the execution," they were given Christian burial in the same place because there is a cemetery there, he said Beloyes

The work of forensics has been arduous given that the pit is in a very remote place, difficult to access in the middle of a humid jungle and about 2 kilometers away from the Alto Terrón village, some of whose inhabitants guided the authorities there .

The prosecutor said there is no evidence that there is another grave or reports that people who identify themselves as members of the supposed "The New Light of God" sect are elsewhere in the region.

The sect's pastors are responsible for causing burns to three people last weekend in the same region during an alleged exorcism.

Prosecutor Beloyes indicated that they expect the first hearings to be held in the next few hours and that they intend to charge crimes for homicide, deprivation of liberty and possibly for sexual abuse, depending on what the autopsies throw, since the female victims were naked.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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