The exhumation of bodies buried in the gigantic Shakahola forest, near Malindi, a Kenyan seaside resort on the Indian Ocean, began on April 25, 2023. YASUYOSHI CHIBA / AFP

LETTER FROM NAIROBI

Paul Mackenzie predicted the world would come to an end in June. His own world collapsed at the end of April, when he was arrested by Kenyan police following the discovery of a hundred decomposing bodies in the Shakahola forest, near the coastal town of Malindi on the Indian Ocean. The Apocalypse never happened. And the now tragically famous preacher is languishing in prison in Mombasa, awaiting trial.

After the guru's first court appearance and three months of searching the 300 hectares of land that served as the headquarters of his evangelical sect, the "Shakahola massacre" continues to grow in scale. For weeks, rescue teams have been digging up new graves in the sandy undergrowth. In all, 425 bodies have been found and 95 people rescued. "This is the biggest act of peacetime barbarism in Kenya since decolonization," said Amnesty International's Kenya director, Irungu Houghton.

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The victims, all followers of Mackenzie, had slowly starved themselves to death since January, when the preacher had ordered them to begin an extreme fast to "meet Jesus." According to the Red Cross, some 600 people are still unaccounted for. But more than three months after the event, investigations are stalling. Worse still, the sect's activities may still be continuing out of sight.

'A former soldier is still operating'

Bodies exhumed in early July were newly buried, a member of the excavation team confided, who wished to remain anonymous. But who could still be burying the Shakahola victims, three months after the sect leader's arrest and with the forest cordoned off by police? "Mackenzie was arrested along with some of his lieutenants, but that doesn't mean they're all behind bars," said Victor Kaudo, head of the Malindi Social Justice Center. "Other leaders of his sect are continuing the macabre enterprise, and I can tell you that one of them, a former soldier, is still operating in the forest," he asserted.

The 320 hectares of woodland are only controlled by a handful of police and military officers: an "impossible" task, according to Kaudo. "There's no transparency and no information on the progress of operations," he said warily. This is especially so, given that the media and civil society organizations are systematically being kept out of both the forest and the morgue.

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Mackenzie, who is due to go on trial this fall, has been charged with "murder, aiding suicide, kidnapping, radicalization, crimes against humanity, cruelty to children, fraud and money laundering." But in the mean time, it is the Kenyan state that is taking the blame. Several civil society organizations suspect the government of negligence, even complicity.

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