The shallow graves in Kenya’s Shakahola Forest held hundreds of bodies, many of them children — victims of a religious sect whose leader promised followers that starving themselves and their children would take them to heaven to be with Jesus.
The discovery in 2023 exposed a system in which Pastor Paul Mackenzie, his helpers and guards used religious teachings and a church hierarchy to enforce “deadly fasting,” according to the judge who convicted
them.
Mackenzie was sentenced Friday to 200 years in prison following his conviction on 191 murder charges. He has denied forcing his followers to starve themselves.
Here’s what to know about one of the world’s worst cult-related tragedies:
The sect was uncovered in April 2023 after Mackenzie had closed his church premises in the coastal resort town of Malindi and moved with hundreds of followers inland to the nearby Shakahola Forest.
Police investigating reports of people going missing found emaciated followers and shallow graves spread across a large ranch in the forest. It took weeks to exhume more than 400 bodies, many of them from mass graves. For most, starvation was the cause of death in what became known as the Shakahola massacre, but some died from suffocation, strangulation or head injuries, according to postmortem reports.
The cause of death for others couldn’t be determined because the bodies had decomposed. A small number of victims died soon after being rescued because they were so emaciated.
More than 60 bodies have been identified and reburied by relatives, while many others remain unidentified and unclaimed.
Mackenzie is a former street vendor and taxi driver who set up his evangelical Good News International Church in Malindi in 2003. Some of his preaching included opposition to formal schooling, some medicines and vaccinations.
He was detained in 2019 for opposing the government’s efforts to assign national identification numbers to Kenyans, saying the numbers were satanic.
That year, he closed his church premises and took his followers to the ranch in the forest, where they built houses and lived in villages with biblical names like Nazareth, according to survivors.
The COVID-19 pandemic encouraged his apocalyptic teachings that the end of the world was coming, and he and the sect hierarchy began to enforce stringent fasting, even forbidding parents to feed their children.
Those who tried to oppose his teachings or leave the forest were beaten, according to survivors.
Justice Diana Kavedza, who delivered the guilty verdicts Oct. 19, said evidence showed Mackenzie and his co-accused had encouraged and later enforced fasting as a way to enter heaven, starting with children. She said it began around January 2021 and lasted more than two years before authorities discovered what was happening.
Mackenzie and his co-accused were formally charged in February 2024. Prosecutors presented evidence from 123 witnesses, they said, including some children who were caught up in the sect.
Two other defendants facing murder charges died during the prosecution.
Mackenzie was convicted alongside 28 others who helped run a sect connected to his Good News International Church in coastal southeast Kenya. The murder charges involved the deaths of 190 children and one adult.
At Friday’s sentencing, Kavedza said Mackenzie bore the “primary criminal culpability” for relocating his followers and ordering them to fast to death. His assistant pastor, Smart Mwakalama, received a 160-year prison sentence.
Prosecutors had sought the death penalty for Mackenzie and life imprisonment for his accomplices. Defense lawyer Lawrence Obonyo said he had already launched an appeal. Kenya last carried out an execution in 1987.
Mackenzie and others also face separate manslaughter, terrorism and child torture charges in the deaths of more than 200 others.
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Associated Press writer Evelyne Musambi in Mombasa, Kenya contributed to this report.
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