KILIFI, Kenya — The pastor of a doomsday cult in which hundreds of people died by starving themselves to meet Jesus has claimed he is being mistreated by prison officials and threatened to undertake a hunger strike in protest.
Pastor Paul Mackenzie of Good News International Ministries reportedly made the claim during a court appearance in August and demanded that he be killed instead of “tortured in jail.”
“If you are tired of us and don’t want to accord us basic dignity you might as well kill us and throw our bodies in [Yala River]. After all, we are all going to die someday. This court needs to help me because I am suffering,” Mackenzie said.
Officials say the cult leader encouraged his followers to starve themselves to death in the name of meeting Jesus. He and at least two dozen other co-accused persons were detained amid the ongoing investigation into what has been dubbed the “Shakahola Forest Massacre.” They face murder and terrorism charges, among others.
Mackenzie was arrested after surrendering to authorities on April 14, when two bodies were discovered in the Shakahola forest in Kilifi County, along Kenya’s east coast. Officials have since found more than 400 bodies of suspected church members buried in at least 50 mass graves in the forest. The majority of bodies exhumed were those of children and women. According to authorities, much of the 800-acre forest has yet to be searched.
Although Mackenzie has been accused of encouraging followers to fast to death, the head of forensic operations and the government chief pathologist said some victims were strangled, beaten, or suffocated to death.
Special Prayers to Meet Jesus
Livingston Amanya, 61, lives nearly 400 miles from the Shakahola forest in Vihiga County. During his interview with Faithfully Magazine, Amanya could not hold back tears.
“As you can see, I am a much-stressed man. In this family, we’ve lost six grandchildren and the wife of my son,” Amanya told FM.
Amanya lamented that he stayed behind at home when his daughter-in-law took her children to Kilifi County for special prayers that she believed would enable them to meet Jesus Christ.
“We need some mental help support, but no human rights organization or a therapist has come to stand with us during these difficult times,” Amanya said. “We normally see human rights groups and charitable organizations supporting families in tragedies like this one. But for us, we haven’t seen any, and we wonder.”
The latest tally puts the number of corpses exhumed in the Shakahola forest at 427 as of August. Of that number, 227 are minors. Another 600 people believed linked to the doomsday cult are reportedly still missing.
John Katana is among many family members in Kilifi County still looking for their kin since the Shakahola tragedies were exposed.
Katana, 87, sorrowfully related how his two daughters left home to attend special prayers at Good News International Ministries in early April. Since then, they have yet to be seen.
The grieving father, who referred to himself as a layman, struggled to understand what happened under the guise of special prayers in the forest. He is looking forward to in-depth investigations to reveal precisely what happened.
In the meantime, Katana underwent DNA testing to reveal if his daughters were among the recovered corpses. But there were no matches. He appealed to the government and well-wishers to assist him in finding his daughters.
“What I want is to see my children, whether alive or dead,” Katana told FM.
Crackdown on Churches
The Shakahola brutalities have led to the court-ordered closure of several churches in Kenya.
Among churches investigators say are linked to Mackenzie’s doomsday cult is New Life Prayer Center, led by wealthy preacher Ezekiel Odero. The court reversed its deregistration of Odero’s church, although his TV station remains shut down. Odero denies any ties to Mackenzie’s cult, although he has acknowledged that people have died at his vast church property.
Kenyan police have searched the church of televangelist Ezekiel Odero and are looking into his alleged relationship with preacher Paul Mackenzie Nthenge – who is accused of telling his followers to starve to death ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/rfC28rRr7o
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) May 24, 2023
Kenya’s Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki called the Shakahola massacre the worst atrocity in the country since independence in an apology to Kenyans offered before a Senate committee. He blamed the National Intelligence Service, a national investigative agency, for sleeping on the job while Kenyans were being murdered and buried secretly.
Kindiki vowed to crack down on rogue churches and clergy members nationwide — a promise heavily opposed by clerics, who say the Christian church in Kenya is not in crisis.
Though Article 32 of the constitution of Kenya grants freedom of worship, the chapter has been misused, resulting in thousands of churches whose motives are questionable. Some have dragged crowds to cultism, leading to the loss of lives and properties.
Kenya remains over 80% Christian. There are over 4,000 registered churches and many unregistered operating throughout the country, mostly in informal settlements in urban centers.
As Good News International Ministries cult leader Mackenzie remains detained, the Kenya Coalition of Church Alliances and Ministries (KCCAM) has distanced itself from the Shakahola forest incident. KCCAM leadership insists the massacre is an isolated case and has warned the state against using the killings to regulate or clamp down on religious denominations in the country.
KCCAM chairman Bishop Stephen Mutua said Mackenzie’s doomsday cult is not affiliated with his organization.
“What happen[ed] in Shakahola is a crime, and the person behind it should be punished heavily according to the law of the land,” Mutua, pastor of Eagles Christian Church in Nairobi, told FM.
During a June press conference, Mutua called Mackenzie “a disgrace to the country” and insisted that he “should not be called a Christian, let alone a pastor.”
Mutua, a former international director under late evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, said that churches operate within the law and have their own way of solving internal problems when they arise.
“Separation of church and state is a principle embraced by secular countries all over the world, concurrent with the provisions that there shall be no state religion,” the evangelical leader said during the press briefing.
A Losing Battle
As Kenyans grieve the victims lost to Mackenzie’s alleged influence, fresh bodies are still being exhumed in the Shakahola forest — leading some to question who is burying people in the woods while Mackenzie and his co-accused are detained.
“We have exhumed 16 bodies. Some are still fresh, [and] the clothes used to cover them were still intact,” a government officer who did not want to be named recently told FM.
While the number of people belonging to Mackenzie’s church is unknown, the government officer said there were people in the vast forest who still needed to be rescued.
Jane (a pseudonym) is among the estimated dozens that police have rescued so far. She lives more than 45 miles from the Shakahola forest in the town of Malindi.
The woman did not give her age but appeared to be between 30 and 35 years old. She said she believes in Mackenzie because he was chosen by God and insisted the government is fighting a losing battle. She also expressed regret over her rescue.
“They blocked me from meeting Jesus,” Jane told FM.
Mackenzie, operating for at least 20 years, has been described as a 50-year-old former taxi driver. Among his teachings are that formal education is satanic and that all diseases can be cured through prayer and fasting. He has had previous run-ins with the law.
According to relatives and investigators, the doomsday cult leader reportedly told followers that the world would end on April 15 and that Satan would rule for millennia. Mackenzie has denied ordering followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus before the world’s end. He told investigators that he himself had been eating.
