Kenyan authorities have begun handing over bodies to the families of the victims at the Malindi District Hospital morgue (Reuters)

Nairobi -

Under a hastily erected tent, dozens of families of the victims of the “Shakahola Forest Massacre” lined up in front of the Kilifi morgue in Kenya to receive the remains of their relatives, most of them wearing medical masks, while the smell of death emanated from the ambulances and death bags.

The paramedics were busy removing the remains of the victims one by one from the ambulances, and transporting them to the morgue in preparation for handing them over to the families, after the black body bags were piled up containing the remains of emaciated bodies that had died due to deliberate starvation, as the only way to “enter Paradise and meet Christ.”

The roots of the massacre

The leader of the "Church of Good News" sect, Paul McKenzie, convinced his followers that April 15, 2023 is the date of the end of the world, and that they must abstain from eating "if they want to be saved and enter heaven," but one day before the date, specifically on April 14. Paul McKenzie surrendered himself to the authorities and has been under arrest ever since.

At the beginning of last April 2023, an anonymous report reached the Kenyan authorities about the presence of bodies in the “Shakahola” forest in the southeast of the country. Forensic teams set off for the site, and upon their arrival, the atrocities began to unfold, as they found mass graves, in which dozens of families, including children, were buried. In several locations in the forest.

Investigators initially found a number of bodies buried in shallow graves, and as the search and recovery teams continued their work, they found a number of citizens alive but suffering from severe emaciated condition, and most of them died later after arriving at hospitals.

The testimonies of the sect’s survivors were conflicting, as some of them told the police, after their rescue, that they were forced to fast “to show their adherence to the teachings of their religion,” while others confirmed that they joined the church of their own free will and “no one forced them to starve themselves.”

The authorities expanded the scope of the search to cover about 325 hectares, and announced a curfew, but the number of victims began to rise, and by the end of last July, the number had reached about 429 victims, and McKenzie, along with a number of his followers, were accused of involvement in their killing, and those arrested were charged with terrorism.

Paul McKenzie surrendered himself to the authorities and has been under arrest since last April (Reuters)

Mackenzie the taxi driver

According to testimonies of people connected to him, MacKenzie worked as a taxi driver in the mid-1990s, but he disappeared for years before reappearing in 2003 claiming to be a pastor, and founded an evangelical religious group called “Good News Church.”

McKenzie was known for his extremist views, and was arrested between 2017 and 2018 for encouraging children not to go to school, under the pretext that education was “not recognized in the Bible.” He was also detained in 2023 on suspicion of killing two children, but was released on bail.

Video clips of the man spread on the Internet, in one of which he says, “Children are crying because they are hungry, so let them die.” In other clips, he describes formal education as a “satanic work” that is used for blackmail and wasting money. He encouraged mothers to avoid seeking medical care during childbirth and seek help from “ Holy Spirit".

In the last incident, investigations showed that McKenzie encouraged members of his church to move to the Shakahola Forest to “prepare for the end of the world,” and that he chose the area because of its remoteness, and when his followers arrived at the villages that McKenzie had established, he asked them to “destroy official documents,” according to the authorities.

Medical reports after autopsies showed that the cause of death was starvation, and that some of them died by suffocation and beatings, as this is one of the worst tragedies related to worship in Kenya, and its revelation led to harsh criticism of the authorities for not arresting McKenzie in previous periods despite several charges being brought against him.

The number of victims discovered a year after the tragedy reached 423 (Reuters)

Unidentified bodies

After nearly a year, the authorities handed over the bodies of 33 identified people to their families, leaving more than 390 bodies that have not yet been identified, according to Roslyn Odede, head of the National Human Rights Commission, as the absence of documents proving the identities of the victims made identifying the bodies difficult.

Odedi called on the Kenyan authorities to increase the number of forensic doctors and genetic laboratories to speed up the process of identifying the victims. She said in front of the Kilifi morgue, "Continuing work at this current pace will make closing this file take at least 10 years."

McKenzie is behind bars awaiting the end of his trial, and he and a number of his aides are facing charges including murder, cruelty, child torture, and terrorism. While awaiting trial, the authorities recorded the death of one of the defendants, who went on a hunger strike and deliberately starved himself until he died.

Source: Al Jazeera