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The number of suspected members of a Christian sect who fasted to death in a forest in southern Kenya to meet Jesus Christ is now 211, after authorities today exhumed ten new bodies, police said.

Kenyan Coast Regional Police Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha told reporters that three people were rescued, although their health condition is serious, bringing the death toll to 84.

Four new suspects were arrested, bringing the total to 31. The commissioner also said that the number of people reported missing remains at 610.

Almost all the dead of the so-called "Shakahola massacre", as the forest in which the tragedy happened is called, have been exhumed from graves and mass graves found in that forest, except for a few who died in hospital due to their serious condition.

The autopsies of more than a hundred bodies showed that, although all showed signs of starvation, the bodies of at least three minors and one adult also had traces of strangulation and suffocation.

Likewise, the first investigations of the Police suggest that the faithful were forced to continue with the fast even if they wanted to abandon it.

Last Wednesday, the court of Shanzu, in the coastal city of Mombasa, ordered to extend for 30 days (starting the count on May 3) the detention of the leader of the sect that allegedly persuaded the victims to fast, Pastor Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, along with his wife and 16 other suspects.

One of those arrested for his relationship with the pastor leader of the sect. AP

On May 2, Nthenge and the other detainees were released by the court in the coastal resort town of Malindi, after the Prosecutor's Office stated its intention to bring terrorism charges against them, something for which the court declared itself incompetent.

However, the pastor and his henchmen were arrested minutes later and transferred to the court in Shanzu, about 120 kilometers away, where the police requested, unsuccessfully, authorization to detain them for 90 more days.

Kenyan President William Ruto apologized Sunday on behalf of his government for failing to prevent the deaths.

Nthenge, in police custody since April 14, leads the Good News International Church. A former taxi driver, the pastor was already arrested last March after being accused of the deaths of two children in similar circumstances, but was released on bail.

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