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Kenyan police have exhumed 47 bodies near the coastal town of Malindi to investigate a preacher who allegedly told his followers to starve to death.
Among the dead were the corpses of children. Police said excavations were underway.
The shallow grave is located in the Shakahora forest where 15 members of the Good News International Church were rescued last week.
Church leader Paul Mackenzie Ensenge is in custody pending appearance in court.
State broadcaster KBC described him as a “cult leader” and reported that 58 graves had been identified so far.
One of the tombs is believed to contain the remains of five members of the same family (three children and their parents).
Nsenge has denied wrongdoing but has been denied bail. He claims to have closed his own church in 2019.
He is said to have told his followers to starve in order to “see Jesus.”
The Kenyan daily Standard said pathologists would take DNA samples and conduct tests to determine if the victims died of starvation.
Police arrested Nthenge on April 15 after discovering the bodies of four people suspected of starvation.
Victor Kaud of the Malindi Social Justice Center told Citizen TV, “We were in this forest and we came to a place where we could see a big, tall cross and there were five or more people buried there. I know there are,” he said.
Kenya’s Interior Minister Kitule Kindiki said all 800 acres of forest had been cordoned off and declared a crime scene.
Nsenge named three villages in Nazareth, Bethlehem and Judea, and baptized his followers in a pond before ordering them to fast, The Standard reports.
Kenya is a country of religion and there have been past cases of people being lured into dangerous and unregulated churches and cults.
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