A Kenyan pastor told followers to starve to meet Jesus, and hundreds died in a forest
Diggers found bodies broken down like porridge, including 12 children in one grave, and one father lost all five of his children.
Global News Podcast · How will violent unrest influence France's election?Salem, one of the local men hired by the police to dig up bodies in Shakahola Forest, said he had unintentionally grazed a nose off a decomposed body while excavating.
Police hired local men to dig up the graves. Motorcycle rider Jafar said some bodies had broken down to the texture of porridge. Salem said, "One grave had 12 children in it."
This is where Pastor Paul Mackenzie, a Kenyan preacher, led hundreds of his followers to die in what ranks among the deadliest cult tragedies on record. He had told them to stop eating and to fast to death so they would meet Jesus, and hundreds did.
In 2019, Mackenzie had been preaching to a packed tent in southern Kenya. Hundreds of people sat in plastic chairs, watching and applauding, as he warned that the end times were coming, that they should avoid modern doctors and schools because evil had spread into everyday life. Then he told them to move from the church to somewhere remote.
That place was Shakahola Forest, a barren stretch roughly an hour inland from the coast. Today it holds mostly dead trees, with goats bleating in the distance. To an outsider, settling in that stark landscape makes little sense.
Among those who followed him were the pregnant wife and five children of Steven Muiti, a 48-year-old security guard who lived with his family in a small home in nearby Malindi. Muiti said his wife took his family to the forest after hearing Mackenzie preach on television. Only his wife survived.
Every time he walks down the street and sees children, Muiti said, he sees the faces of his dead kids. Sometimes, he said, he cannot sleep. Asked what he would say if Mackenzie stood in front of him, he answered that one of the two of them would have to die, him or Mackenzie.
Questions people ask
What happened to Paul Mackenzie?
Kenyan authorities arrested Mackenzie in April 2023 after the bodies were discovered in Shakahola Forest. He has since faced multiple criminal charges, including murder, manslaughter, and terrorism-related counts, and has remained in custody while cases move through Kenyan courts.
How many people died?
Kenyan authorities have recovered more than 400 bodies from Shakahola Forest, with scores of other people reported missing. The toll makes it one of the deadliest cult disasters in modern history, comparable to Jonestown in Guyana in 1978 and the Branch Davidian fire in Waco, Texas, in 1993.
Why would followers starve themselves, including their children?
Experts on high-control groups say followers often give up food, medicine, or contact with family in stages, out of trust, fear of punishment in the afterlife, and pressure from the group. Children almost never choose to fast on their own. In starvation cases, adults typically withhold food from them.