Dozens of members rescued from a church whose pastor is accused of telling followers to starve themselves appeared in court. A judge sent them to rehab rather than jail to await another hearing.
The emaciated survivors of a doomsday cult in Kenya that the authorities say ordered its followers to starve themselves to death held hands and leaned on each other as they staggered into a courtroom on Thursday to face charges of trying to kill themselves.
The 65 cult members have been refusing to eat their meals at a rescue centre where they are being cared for — prompting the authorities to charge them with attempted suicide, a crime under Kenyan law, and adding a further twist to a case that has shocked the East African nation.
The followers of Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, an evangelical pastor who the authorities say told members of his church to starve their children and themselves to death in order to meet Jesus, appeared at the Shanzu Law Courts in the port city of Mombasa, carrying their few belongings and bags. Some of them, looking gaunt and weak, fell asleep during the proceedings.
While there had been speculation that the survivors would be sent to jail to await trial, the magistrate, Joe Omido, followed recommendations from Kenya’s national human rights watchdog to return them to the rescue centre.
As of this week, 318 bodies have been exhumed from the Shakahola Forest, an 800-acre bush land area where the pastor and his congregants lived and where those who died had been buried in shallow graves at least since 2021. At least 613 people remain missing, county officials said, while 95 others have so far been rescued.
The case, which first came to public attention in April, has jolted Kenya, with rights groups and observers wondering how the police and intelligence services failed to prevent the deaths for so long. —BBC
