![]() ![]() When asked about the accusations that followers of his group had starved their children following his instructions, Mackenzie said he had “never seen anybody starving.” So, I don’t know what is going outside there. Because I have been in custody for two months. Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty ImagesĪt a recent hearing Mackenzie denied all knowledge of the horrors that witnesses, inspectors, and survivors believe happened in the Shakahola forest. He drew in flight attendants and social workers paramilitary police and professionals from all across Kenya.Īn officer of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations walks at the mass-grave site in Shakahola. Investigators say they have corroborated those details. The assistant pastor says Mackenzie told his followers to pull their children out of school, discard their national IDs, avoid hospitals, and start preparing for the end of the world. The sermons were normal, but from 2010 his ‘end time’ messages began. “In the beginning, the church was good, there were no issues. He did not wish to be named as he said he is a witness in the investigation. He drew a significant following, says an assistant pastor who worked with him for years until they had a falling out. ![]() Mackenzie became known for his fiery sermons. And sometime in the early 2000s, Mackenzie abandoned his job as a taxi driver and launched the Good News International Ministry. ![]() In Kenya, there is an old joke that if you lose your job, start a church or a charity. Like many former cult members, she was unwilling to share her full name.Īgnes, now 26, joined Mackenzie’s church when she was still in high school along with other members of her family. When the ark is closed, you will be too late,’” says Agnes, as her children play on a reed mat in her yard in Malindi. He called me and said, ‘my daughter, you are being left behind. They contend that the “Shakahola Massacre,” as it has been dubbed, bears all the hallmarks of destructive cults past and present. David McKenzie/CNNīut the trajectory it is all too familiar for cult specialists and psychologists. Paul Mackenzie pictured in court during a hearing earlier in June. Many find it difficult to comprehend the dark path that Pastor Paul Nthenge Mackenzie allegedly took his followers along. The revelation of mass graves has dominated headlines and shaken the collective psyche in a country where faith and religion are central. The cult was preparing for the end of the world under the instruction of their its powerful pastor, say investigators.įollowers believed that starvation was their ticket to their salvation But Kenyan interior ministry officials say that scores of mass graves remain. Many of the graves were unmarked.Īlready, more than 300 sets of bodies have been recovered. In site after site, shallow graves disturb the dirt. Two hours drive from Kenya’s coastal tourist town of Malindi, forensic teams turn off the tarred road into a thicket of thorn bush, entering a crime scene that came to light in mid-March.ĬNN has traveled here as investigators uncover what could become one of the worst mass suicides in recent memory.ĭetectives say that the cult community was split into eight separate settlements with biblical names such as Galilee and Bethlehem. The reddish soil of the Shakahola forest is still giving up its terrible secrets. ![]()
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