Kenya starvation cult massacre: Investigators exhume 21 more bodies, toll rises to 133

Kenyan investigators on Tuesday (May 9) exhumed 21 more bodies as they resumed a search for followers of a doomsday cult. The latest figures on the bodies exhumed take the death toll to 133. Paul Mackenzie, the notorious cult leader, is among the 16 suspects accused of operating an armed -- and apparently well-fed -- "enforcer gang" tasked with ensuring that no one broke their fast or left their forest hideout alive, investigators said.

Mackenzie is currently in custody. The search operation in the Shakahola forest in southeastern Kenya was suspended for a few days due to bad weather, with hundreds of people still reported missing.

Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki visited the forest where workers wearing hazmat suits and masks were digging up graves. Later addressing a press conference, Kindiki said, "We have many more graves in this forest, and therefore it leads us to conclude that this was a highly organised crime."

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While starvation appears to be the main cause of death, some of the victims, including children, were strangled, beaten, or suffocated, chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor said. And as per court documents on Monday, some of the corpses had their organs removed, with police alleging the suspects were engaged in forced harvesting of body parts, the news agency AFP reported.

"Post-mortem reports have established missing organs in some of the bodies of victims who have been exhumed," chief inspector Martin Munene said in an affidavit filed to a Nairobi court.

"It is believed that trade on human body organs has been well coordinated involving several players," he added.

The chief inspector also pointed out Ezekiel Odero, a high-profile televangelist who was arrested in April in connection with the same case and granted bail last Thursday, had received "huge cash transactions," allegedly from Mackenzie's followers who sold their property at the cult leader's bidding.

Meanwhile, Paul Mackenzie's lawyer George Kariuki said that Kariuki was cooperating with the police. Speaking to Reuters, Kariuki said that Mackenzie wanted the investigation not to be "one-sided" by focusing on him, adding police should keep an open mind to unravel the mess.

(With inputs from agencies)

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