Kenya Doomsday Death Toll Hits 200, With More Than 600 Reported Missing

[Nevilledog]

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/kenya-doomsday-cult-bodies-exhumed-mass-graves_n_6460fa7de4b005be8ff431a4


NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The death toll linked to a doomsday cult in Kenya hit 201 Saturday after police exhumed 22 more bodies, most of them bearing signs of starvation, according to the coast regional commissioner.

The bodies are believed to be those of followers of a pastor based in coastal Kenya, Paul Mackenzie. He’s alleged to have ordered congregants to starve to death in order to meet Jesus.

More than 600 people are still missing.

Mackenzie, who was arrested last month, remains in custody. Police plan to charge him with terrorism-related offenses.

Workers take shelter while digging the ground to exume bodies from the mass-grave site in Shakahola on April 25. A cult was believed to be practising mass starvation.

Hundreds of bodies have been dug up from dozens of mass graves spread across his 800-acre property, located in the coastal county of Kilifi.

*snip*

[dalton99a]

1. He Told Followers to Starve to Meet Jesus. Why Did So Many Do It?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/14/world/africa/kenya-christian-cult-deaths.html
https://archive.ph/RgavU

He Told Followers to Starve to Meet Jesus. Why Did So Many Do It?
Hundreds were drawn to a remote wilderness in southeastern Kenya by the End Times preaching of pastor Paul Mackenzie. Relatives and ex-members tried to intervene, but some did not want to be rescued.
By Andrew Higgins
May 14, 2023 Updated 9:08 a.m. ET

Delirious from hunger, a believer who had brought his family to live with a Christian doomsday cult in a remote wilderness in southeastern Kenya sent a distraught text to his younger sister last week. While he begged for her help to escape, he was still in the grip of the preacher who had lured him there, promising salvation through death by starvation.

“Answer me quickly, because I don’t have much time. Sister, End Times is here and people are being crucified,” Solomon Muendo, a former street hawker, told his sister. “Repent so that you’re not left behind, Amen.”

Mr. Muendo, 35, has been living in the Shakahola Forest since 2021, when, like hundreds of other believers, he abandoned his home and moved there with his wife and two young children.

They were following the call of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, a former taxi driver turned televangelist who, declaring that the world was about to end, marketed Shakahola to his followers as an evangelical Christian sanctuary from the fast-approaching apocalypse.

Instead of a haven, however, the 800-acre property, a sun-scorched wasteland of scrub and spindly trees, is now a gruesome crime scene, scattered with the shallow graves of believers who starved themselves to death — or, as Mr. Mackenzie would have it, crucified themselves so that they could meet Jesus.

[dchill]

2. "Why Did So Many Do It?"

A question for the ages.

[tblue37]

4. In Jonestown, armed guards gave the people no choice. Probably there were armed guards to prevent

those with second thoughts from leaving in this case, too.

[dalton99a]

5. +1. Murder was committed:

The government’s chief pathologists reported last week that while starvation caused many deaths, some of the bodies showed signs of death by asphyxiation, strangulation or bludgeoning. Some had had organs removed, a police affidavit said.

[keithbvadu2]

3. I'll bet the pastor has been pretty well fed and not eager to go meet Jesus.

Bring your worldly possessions and come to my cult.