The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Kenya: organs were missing from some corpses of the "Shakahola massacre", according to investigators

2023-05-09T12:28:28.176Z

Highlights: More than a hundred bodies have been found in a forest in southeastern Kenya. Autopsies have revealed that some of the victims had missing organs. The bodies were believed to have been killed by extreme fasting. A court in Mombasa has ordered the freezing of more than 20 accounts belonging to one of the men. The man has been detained for 90 days, but is expected to be released on bail on Wednesday. He is accused of paying people to fast in a bid to get money from the government.


The bodies of members of a Kenyan sect found in the southeastern forest have been autopsied. More than a hundred bodies have so far been found.


Autopsies of corpses found in a forest in southeastern Kenya, where members of an evangelical sect practicing extreme fasting were meeting, revealed missing organs on some bodies, according to a court document seen by AFP on Tuesday.

More than a hundred bodies, most of them children, have so far been found in the investigation into the "Shakahola Forest Massacre", the revelation of which has sparked fear and incomprehension in this religious country in East Africa.

Fasting "to meet Jesus"

According to autopsies performed on 112 bodies, most of the victims died of starvation, presumably after following the sermons of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, a self-proclaimed pastor of the International Church of Good News who advocated fasting "to meet Jesus". Some victims - including children - were strangled, beaten or suffocated, the head of forensic operations, Dr Johansen Oduor, said last week.

" READ ALSO Kenya: what is the International Church of Good News, this sect advocating fasting until death?

«

Autopsy reports have found missing organs on some of the bodies of victims who have so far been exhumed, "reveals a court document consulted Tuesday AFP, evoking "a well-coordinated trafficking of human organs involving several actors", without further details. In this document dated Monday, the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) requests the freezing of bank accounts of Pastor Ezekiel Odero, arrested on April 28 in this case and released on bail Thursday.

'Huge cash transactions'

According to the DCI, this influential pastor received "huge cash transactions" from sums paid by Mackenzie worshippers who had asked them to sell their properties. A Nairobi court on Monday ordered the freezing of more than 20 accounts belonging to Ezekiel Odero for 30 days. The search for bodies and mass graves, suspended due to bad weather, resumed Tuesday in Shakahola forest.

«

Search and rescue efforts ... are continuing," said Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki, who was at the scene. Pastor Mackenzie will be prosecuted for "terrorism," prosecutors announced on May 2. A court in Mombasa, Kenya's second city, is due to rule on Wednesday on whether to extend his detention for 90 days.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2023-05-09

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z
News/Politics 2024-03-28T06:04:53.137Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.