7 new bodies have been found as exhumations continued in the Kenyan forest of Shakahola on Monday
As exhumations continued on Monday in a Kenyan forest where hundreds of victims of a Doomsday cult were found buried last year, seven more bodies were discovered.
The total number of people unearthed from the mass graves now stands at 436.
The government paused the exhumations last year, to allow for DNA matching of the bodies. So far, only 34 of the victims have been identified.
Kenyan investigators found seven more bodies on Monday as exhumations resumed in a forest where hundreds of victims of a doomsday starvation cult were buried in mass graves, police said.
The remains of 436 people have now been unearthed in a remote wilderness inland from the Indian Ocean coastal town of Malindi in a grisly case that shocked Kenya and the world.
Images broadcast on Kenyan television showed seven blue plastic body bags lined up on the ground in Shakahola Forest before being transferred to a vehicle.
“We exhumed seven bodies today. In one grave, there were four bodies while the other three were buried separately,” Dr Johansen Oduor, Chief Government Pathologist told journalists at the site.
Tens of new graves identified
“We have about 50 graves that have been identified and we are going to dig them up,” he said.
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie is alleged to have in order to “meet Jesus” before what he predicted would be the end of the world in August last year.
He was arrested in April 2023 after the discovery of the first bodies in what has been dubbed the “Shakahola forest massacre.”
The former taxi driver turned pastor has pleaded not guilty to 191 counts of murder, manslaughter and terrorism.
He has also been charged with child torture and cruelty.
So far, 34 of the 429 bodies exhumed between April and October last year have been positively identified through DNA profiling.
While starvation caused many deaths, some of the bodies, including those of children, showed signs of death by asphyxiation, strangulation or bludgeoning, according to government autopsies.
Last year, Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki accused Kenyan police of laxity in investigating the initial reports of starvation in Shakahola forest.