Hundreds of bodies exhumed from mass grave discovered last April
Kenyan authorities on Tuesday began releasing the bodies of victims of a doomsday hunger cult to grieving relatives, nearly a year after mass graves were discovered in horrific cases that shocked the world.
An AFP reporter at the scene said a tearful family received four bodies as they were loaded into a hearse from a morgue in the Indian Ocean town of Malindi.
After months of painstaking work, using DNA for identification, they were the first bodies to be handed over to loved ones for burial.
“It’s a relief that we finally found the bodies, but it’s also frustrating that they’re just skeletons,” William Ponda, 32, who lost his mother in the tragedy, told AFP. brother, sister-in-law and nephew. .
“I don’t have any hope that the rest of the family will be found.”
Last April, hundreds of bodies, including those of children, were exhumed in shallow mass graves found in the remote wilderness of Malindi’s interior.
Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Ntenge Mackenzie was accused of inciting his followers to starve to death in order to “encounter Jesus” in what became known as the “Shakahora Forest Massacre”.
The former taxi driver turned savior has pleaded not guilty to 191 counts of murder, manslaughter and terrorism. He was also charged with child abuse and child abuse.
So far, 34 of the 429 bodies exhumed between April and October last year have been confirmed through DNA analysis.
While starvation killed many, some bodies, including those of children, showed signs of death by suffocation, strangulation or bludgeoning, according to government autopsies.
Families need ‘closure’
Due to a lack of reagents and equipment, DNA analysis was delayed and families had to endure an agonizing wait for the bodies of their loved ones.
Roseline Odede, chairperson of the state-backed Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), lamented the slow process of identifying the victims and releasing the bodies.
“There are still over 390 bodies that have not been identified. At this rate, we will be here for 10 years,” she told reporters in Malindi.
“The government must consciously commit resources to this process so that we can provide closure for families.”
Last week, the National Center for Human Rights accused security officials in Malindi of “gross negligence and dereliction of duty”.
“Not only did they fail to proactively gather intelligence and take action to prevent the Shaka Hora massacre, but they also unjustifiably failed to act on credible and actionable reports,” Odede said at the time.
The government’s chief pathologist, Johansen Oduor, said the identification process was slow because most of the victims’ families did not come to collect the bodies, posing challenges in obtaining DNA samples.
Oduul said on Monday that at least 35 more mass graves had been discovered in Shaka Hora and that further excavations to begin were likely to increase the total death toll.
A homicide officer from the Criminal Investigation Department told AFP it was up to the relatives to make their own burial arrangements.
Questions have been raised about how McKenzie, a father of seven, managed to evade law enforcement despite his history of extremism and law-breaking.
The case also led the government to raise concerns about the need to tighten controls on fringe sects.
Kenya, a devoutly Christian country, has struggled to police unscrupulous churches and cults that dabble in crime.
Kenya’s interior minister said authorities will transform the Shaka Hora forest into a national monument.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
