Kenyan authorities ignored warnings about death cult, says human rights group | CBC Radio

WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

Dozens of lives could have been spared if Kenyan authorities had acted sooner to shut down a notorious Christian death cult, says a local social justice organization.

As of Tuesday, Kenyan authorities had recovered 89 bodies — some of them children — from mass graves in the Shakahola forest in eastern Kenya, the country’s interior minister said. 

The country’s police chief said the dead were followers of a cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death.

The cult’s purported leader has been arrested, and some emaciated survivors are in hospital recovering. The death toll is expected to grow as the exhumations continue. The Kenyan Red Cross said more than 200 people have been reported missing.

But Victor Kaudo, executive director of the Malindi Social Justice Centre, says it didn’t have to come to this. 

“The whole blame goes back to the government. Because it is the government that failed to rescue its people from the very beginning,” Kaudo told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.

“We have been telling them that this thing is happening [and] nothing has taken place.”

WATCH | Kenya police begin exhuming remains from suspected Christian cult graves:

Dozen of bodies exhumed from suspected cult graves in Kenya

Dozens of bodies have been exhumed from the site of an alleged cult in Kenya. Investigators say the victims were told they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death.

CBC has reached out to the Kenyan government for comment via its embassy in Ottawa. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki promised Kenyans that “nothing like this again will happen.”

Cult called education ‘ungodly’: Kaudo

The cult’s alleged leader is a man named Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, often just called Paul Mackenzie. He’s the self-styled pastor of the Good News International Church, which he operated in Malindi until the government shut down in 2019, Kaudo said. 

“The government decided to close his church down after learning that he was using the Bible teachings in the wrong way. He was telling kids not to go to school. Also, all those who went to school to destroy and burn their certificates because education is not godly; it is satanic,” he said.

“The church was closed down, so he decided to go to the rural place. His followers followed him there.”

Mackenzie was arrested on April 14 following a tip-off, police said. Another 14 cult members are in custody. Kenyan media have reported that Mackenzie is refusing food and water.

“We do not expect that Mr. Mackenzie will get out of jail for the rest of his life,” Kindiki said, adding that anyone who assisted him by digging graves or disposing of bodies should also face the harshest penalties under the law.

Kenyan President William Ruto on Monday called the alleged cult leader a “terrible criminal” who belonged to no religion and whose actions are akin to “terrorism.” 

Mackenzie’s lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment. He has previously argued in statements to local media that he stopped preaching in 2019, and that allegations against him are the result of hostile propaganda from former followers.

Released on bail before

This isn’t Mackenzie first brush with authorities. Last month, police arrested him in connection with the deaths of two boys, then released him on bail. He was accused of encouraging the boys’ parents to starve and suffocate their children to death. 

“Immediately [after] he was released, he went back to Shakahola, and the graves that we got today are believed to be an outcome of the release he was given,” Kaudo said. “Because these bodies … are still very fresh.”

That’s something Kaudo knows first-hand. His organization has been working at the scene, and he says he’s personally witnessed the exhumations of 26 bodies from six graves. 

One grave, he says, held eight people, “believed to be a single family that had a man, children and a wife.”

“The situation here is very bad, especially to us as human rights defenders,” Kaudo said. “We just need psychosocial supports. Because seeing small children being exhumed from those shallow graves is really disheartening.”

He says his organization has known about the cult for some time, and has even worked to rescue some members. 

“We raised the alarm,” Kaudo said. “No action took place.”

Kenya’s national police did not respond to a request for comment.

What happens next?

Kaudo says he’s worried now about what will happen to those who survived.

“The government, itself, is not looking at the matter of giving these people psychosocial support. We are doing that. Which means we need help,” he said.

“Because once we rescue them, we take them to hospital. But after hospital, where do we take them again? There are no specific places in Kenya where we can take such kind of people.”

He says he believes the cult was able to get away with its activity because the Kenyan government is hesitant to interfere with religious institutions.

Interior Minister Kindiki says this case is a turning point in the threat posed by religious extremism.

“The government admits that this should not have happened,” Kindiki said. “But the government which I represent here, wants to assure the nation of Kenya, that nothing like this again will happen. It won’t happen.”

With files from Reuters and The Associated Press. Interview with Victor Kaudo produced by Kate Swoger.