The hundred bodies, mostly children, were discovered during excavations in the Shakahola forest in eastern Kenya. The victims were part of a sect, which advocated extreme fasting to “meet Jesus”.
It’s a small piece of forest, 300 hectares, not far from the Indian Ocean. In this forest in Kenya now delimited by yellow ribbons, we no longer pass. Finally, yes, a few people pass: forensic doctors, policemen, who go in there, who cut the shrubs, the bushes which block their way, and who, using pickaxes, search the red earth. The search began on Friday April 21. And since then, bodies, more bodies. A little more each day. Especially children.
>> Sectarian excesses: “We quickly understand that we no longer have much choice”, testifies a man who passed through an association targeted by Miviludes
Paul Mackenzie, charismatic leader, founder of his own church
The man who ran this community is called Paul Mackenzie. A “pastor”, who encouraged his faithful to fast, to meet Jesus. His job at the base was however a taxi driver. And then indeed, he created the “International Church of Good News”, 20 years ago and opened a YouTube channel on which he broadcast his orders, very varied, to several thousand faithful. The wigs? The work of the devil. The schooling of children? No way. And to specify: “Education is not recognized by the Bible”.
In the Kenyan newspaper, The Nationa father desperately searches for his wife and their five children. “I fear the worst, he explains. My wife changed when she started following this Pastor’s sermons on her screen.” She ended up following him, into the forest. These days, in the bush, investigators are also still finding people alive, starving, who do not want to be rescued. “God is waiting for us, some say, leave us alone.” An old man, the grandfather of missing children asks: “Why can’t the government protect us from cults?”
A deeply religious country where small “independent” churches multiply without control
The Nairobi government speaks today of 4,000 different churches, self-proclaimed pastors, often without religious training, who seduce rural and poor populations: one man encourages his flock to give a lot of money, another asks them not to don’t set foot in a hospital…
The Kenya National Council of Churches did try to offer oversight of these independent churches, but they refused. And it didn’t go any further. Paul Mackenzie himself had been spotted. Arrested several times and released several times.
The Kenyan authorities, criticized, are now promising stricter regulations. In the meantime, Paul Mackenzie is in custody. And to protest against what is happening to him, he has started… a hunger strike.