SHAKAHOLA, Kenya, April 25, 2023 (BSS/AFP) - The death toll from a
suspected Kenyan starvation cult climbed to 90 on Tuesday, including many
children, as police said investigators were pausing the search for bodies
because the morgues were full.

The discovery of mass graves in Shakahola forest near the coastal town of
Malindi has shocked Kenyans, with cult leader Paul Mackenzie Nthenge accused of
driving his followers to death by preaching that starvation was the only path
to God.

There are fears more corpses could be found as search teams unearthed 17
bodies on Tuesday, with investigators saying children made up the majority of
victims of what has been dubbed the "Shakahola Forest Massacre".

Kenya's government has vowed to crack down on fringe religious outfits in
the largely Christian country.

"We don't know how many more graves, how many more bodies, we are likely to
discover," Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki told reporters, adding the crimes
were serious enough to warrant terrorism charges against Nthenge.

"Those who urged others to fast and die were eating and drinking and they
were purporting that they were preparing them to meet their creator."

The majority of the dead were children, according to three sources close to
the investigation, highlighting the macabre nature of the cult's alleged
practices which included urging parents to starve their offspring.

"The majority of the bodies exhumed are children," a forensic investigator
told AFP on condition of anonymity.

- 'The horror is traumatising' -

An officer from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) also
confirmed that children accounted for more than half of the victims, followed
by women.

Hussein Khalid, executive director of the rights group Haki Africa that
tipped off the police to Nthenge's activities, told AFP that the cult appeared
to require children to starve first, followed by women, and finally men.

He said 50 to 60 percent of the victims were children, whose bodies were
found wrapped in cotton shrouds.

"The horror that we have seen over the last four days is traumatising.
Nothing prepares you for shallow mass graves of children," he said.

Investigators told AFP they found bodies squeezed into shallow pits -- with
up to six people inside one grave -- while others were simply left exposed in
the open air.

As the fatalities mounted, the DCI officer told AFP that search teams would
have to pause their efforts until autopsies were completed.

"We won't dig for a couple of days, so we have time to do the autopsies
because the mortuaries are full," he said on condition of anonymity.

The state-run Malindi Sub-County Hospital had warned that its morgue was
running out of space to store the bodies and was already operating well over
capacity.

"The hospital mortuary has a capacity of 40 bodies," said the hospital's
administrator Said Ali, adding that officials had reached out to the Kenya Red
Cross for refrigerated containers.

Kindiki said 34 people had been found alive so far in the 325-hectare
(800-acre) area of woodland.

It is believed that some followers of Nthenge's Good News International
Church could still be hiding in the bush around Shakahola and at risk of death
if not quickly found.

- 'Unacceptable ideology' -

Kenya's President William Ruto has vowed to take action against rogue
pastors like Nthenge "who want to use religion to advance weird, unacceptable
ideology", comparing them to terrorists.

As the investigation unfolds, questions have emerged about how the cult was
able to operate undetected despite Nthenge attracting police attention six
years ago.

The televangelist had been arrested in 2017 on charges of "radicalisation"
after urging families not to send their children to school, saying education
was not recognised by the Bible.

Nthenge was arrested again last month, according to local media, after two
children starved to death in the custody of their parents.

He was released on bail of 100,000 Kenyan shillings ($700) before
surrendering to police following the Shakahola raid.

Nthenge is due to appear in court on May 2.

The Kenya Red Cross said 212 people had been reported missing to its
support staff in Malindi, out of which two were reunited with their families.

The case has prompted calls for tighter control of fringe denominations in
a country with a troubling history of self-declared pastors and cults that have
dabbled in criminality.