New bodies found near site of Kenya’s starvation cult burials

These exhumations were ordered in July after the disappearance of some children triggered a new probe. Prosecutors said 11 people had been arrested in connection with the case, including three who were followers of Mr Mackenzie at the time of “Shakahola Forest Massacre”.

It is believed they were followers of self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie, who is alleged to have encouraged them to starve themselves to death.

In one of the worst ever cases of cult-related mass deaths, more than 400 bodies were found in 2023 in the remote Shakahola Forest, inland from the coastal town of Malindi.

Nine bodies have been exhumed from fresh graves suspected to be linked to Kenya’s notorious starvation cult.

The latest discoveries seem to confirm fears raised by the government earlier in the year that the cult might still be active.

In April, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen said there were allegations that Mr Mackenzie was actively communicating with his followers from jail – using a mobile phone.

Mr Mackenzie, who was arrested last year and pleaded not guilty to manslaughter, allegedly told his followers they would get to heaven more quickly if they stopped eating.

According to the AFP news agency, a Mombasa court adjourned his ongoing case earlier this month citing the discovery of new evidence.

Five bodies were found at the exhumation site in Kwa Binzaro village near Shakahola Forest on Thursday and a further four bodies on Friday.

“We have not exhausted the search; the area is very, very vast. So we expect more bodies,” government pathologist Richard Njoroge told the Reuters news agency on Thursday.

“This is to appeal to the members of the public who may have lost their loved ones or who may suspect that their loved ones are missing to report to Malindi District Hospital. We have a Red Cross desk there, where their details will be taken, and also their DNA samples will be taken.”

The exhumation of 18 more gravesites is expected to continue on Monday.

In July, Kenya’s Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said it believed those buried might have been “starved and suffocated as a result of adopting and promoting extreme religious ideologies”.

Hussein Khalid, a human rights activist and CEO of Vocal Africa, witnessed the exhumations on Thursday.

“The first body which was found by itself appeared to have been put there fairly recently – two to three weeks back. But the other four appear to have been there a while and were in a decomposing state,” he told the BBC.

He said the situation at one of the gravesites hinted at foul play.

“No remains were found but it appeared as if days ago, someone, some people or some group must have removed the corpse that was there,” Mr Khalid said, adding that only pieces of children’s and women’s underwear had been left behind.

“That sent a chilling message that it is possible the person or persons who were buried there were women and children.”

Two Ghanaian ministers die in helicopter crash, along with six others

7 August 2025 Share Save Thomas Naadi BBC News in Accra Danai Nesta Kupemba BBC News in London Share Save

Ghana Armed Forces + Ministry of Science Defence Minister Edward Omane Boamah (l) and Environment, Science and Technology Minister Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed

Ghana’s ministers of defence and environment and six other people have died when a military helicopter crashed in the central Ashanti region. Defence Minister Edward Omane Boamah and Environment, Science and Technology Minister Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, 50, were killed in the crash, which Chief of Staff Julius Debrah described as a “national tragedy”. The Z9 helicopter, carrying three crew and five passengers, came down in a dense forest as it was flying from the capital, Accra, to the town of Obuasi for an event to tackle illegal mining. There were no survivors. The eight bodies have been retrieved from the wreckage and transported to Accra in coffins draped in the Ghanaian flag.

A solemn ceremony was held at the Air Force Base to receive them. Plans to bury the Muslims among the deceased on Thursday have been postponed pending full identification of the bodies. The government has yet to announce the funeral arrangements.

What caused the crash?

The authorities have not confirmed the cause of the crash but the Ghanaian military said investigations had been launched. Ghana’s meteorological agency had forecast unusually cold weather for August, with recent rains and light showers causing foggy conditions in many forest areas. Local farmers near the crash site reported morning fog as the helicopter flew overhead. One eyewitness told the BBC the helicopter was flying at an “unusually low altitude” and the weather was bad. He said he heard the sound of the helicopter passing by, followed by a “loud sound” and then a “bang”. “That’s when I realised that the helicopter had exploded. So I hurried to the place to see if I could find survivors,” he said. The farmer said when he got to the scene there was “no-one to be rescued”. This is the most deadly of three separate emergency incidents involving Ghana Air Force helicopters in recent years. In 2020, a Ghana Air Force Harbin Z-9 helicopter made an emergency landing near Tamale Airport, and last year, another Ghana Air Force helicopter made an emergency landing at Bonsukrom in Ghana’s Western Region.

Three days of national mourning

Many Ghanaians are shocked by the news and still struggling to come to terms with the news. Images purportedly showing the charred remains of the helicopter have been circulating on social media. President John Dramani Mahama has suspended all his scheduled activities for the rest of the week and declared three days of mourning starting from Thursday. The government, through the president’s chief of staff, directed the country’s flags to fly at half-mast. He also extended condolences to “the servicemen who died in service to the country,” on behalf of President Mahama and the government. Ghana’s Deputy National Security Coordinator and former Agriculture Minister Alhaji Muniru Mohammed was also among the dead, along with Samuel Sarpong, Vice-Chairman of the governing National Democratic Congress party. The crew members were named as Squadron Leader Peter Bafemi Anala, Flying Officer Manin Twum-Ampadu, and Sergeant Ernest Addo Mensah. President Mahama was feeling “down, down emotionally”, Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu was cited as saying by news agency AFP.

Who was Edward Omane Boamah?

Boamah served under Mahama’s previous government as communications minister and before that he was minister of environment. As defence minster he tackled jihadist activity that was brewing in the northern border in Burkina Faso. In 2022, a France-based NGO, Promediation, said its research showed that jihadist groups had recruited between 200 and 300 young Ghanaians. Violence in the area has also been on the rise, with concerns that jihadists may be trying to exploit communal in-fighting between rival communities in northern Ghana. Boamah’s book A Peaceful Man In An African Democracy, about former president John Atta Mills, was due to come out later in the year.

Who was Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed?

Muhammed was at the forefront of the battle against illegal gold mining, which has wrecked the environment and contaminated rivers and lakes. Protests against the practice, known locally as Galamsey, peaked during Mahama’s run for the presidency last year.

Getty Images/BBC

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Opapo, Kenya – Perched in the grass alongside the Rongo-Homa Bay Road in Kenya’s Migori County, a rusted sign announces the Melkio St Joseph Missions of Messiah Church in Africa. Beyond it, a sandy path meets big blue and purple gates that barricade the now-deserted grounds from view.

Just more than a month ago, the church in Opapo village was thrust into the spotlight when reports of secret burials and “cult-like” practices emerged.

On April 21, local police stormed the grounds and discovered two bodies buried within the fenced compound – including that of a police officer who was also a church member – as well as dozens of other worshippers who had been living there.

During the raid, 57 people were rescued and taken into custody. In the weeks since, most have been released, but police have banned them from returning to the church and sealed off the compound.

For Kenyans, the incident has unearthed the memory of other controversial churches steeped in allegations of abuse, like the 2023 case where more than 400 people linked to a church-cult starved to death in the Shakahola Forest.

In Opapo village, residents are troubled by the deaths and the decades-long secrecy surrounding the church. Many want to see the permanent closure of the compound and the exhumation and return of the bodies buried there.

Brian Juma, 27, has lived directly beside the church all his life. He told Al Jazeera locals believe it was started by a man who fashioned himself as a sort-of god figure, and who the followers of the church prayed to.

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Juma claims that when the church leader died 10 years ago, followers did not immediately bury him but prayed for three days in the hope that he would rise.

Pauline Auma, a 53-year-old mother of six who also lives near the church, said the congregation was set up in their area in the early 1990s, although she could not recall the exact year.

“When it came, we thought it was a normal church like any other. I remember my sister even attended a service there, thinking it was like other churches, only to come and tell us things that were not normal were taking place. For example, she said the Father there claimed to be God himself,” Auma recounted.

In the years that followed, the church recruited members from different locations across the country. Juma said congregants were not from around the area, spoke different languages, and never left the compound to go to their own homes.

According to Caren Kiarie, a human rights activist from neighbouring Kisumu County, the church has several branches across the Kenyan Nyanza region, and sends members from one location to the other.

Many people came to worship and live within the church full time, Opapo villagers remember.

“They were very friendly people who did business around the Opapo area and interacted well with the people here,” Juma said. “But they would never live outside the church, as they all went back inside in the evening. Within the church compound, they had cattle, sheep, poultry and planted crops for their food.”

Though the worshippers could interact with outsiders, locals say the children living there – some with their parents and others who neighbours said were taken in alone – never attended school, while members were barred from seeking medical care if they were sick.

On the day of the police raid and rescue, many of the worshippers looked weak and ill, said Juma, who over the years befriended some young people whose parents belonged to the church. “They were sickly, as they were never allowed to go to the hospital or even take pain medication,” he said, quoting what his neighbours had told him. Auma believes those who were rescued that day were the sickly ones, as the others had escaped.

The 57 initially refused to leave the compound at all, insisting the church was their only “home”. But police took them to the nearby Rongo Sub-county Hospital to be treated. They again refused medical care and instead began singing Christian praise songs in the Dholuo language. Auma said the songs were chants asking God to save them and take them home to heaven.

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Disturbed by the commotion, health workers recommended that they be moved from the hospital because they were making other patients uncomfortable. That’s when they were taken into police custody. According to the assistant county commissioner, Josphat Kingoku, the worshippers were released from police custody two weeks ago, but he did not know their whereabouts.

Seeking news about loved ones

In Kwoyo in Homa Bay County, Linet Achieng worries about her 71-year-old mother, who left home to join the Migori church 11 years ago and never returned.

Her mother was introduced to the church by a neighbour who was originally from Migori, Achieng said.

“Initially, she had gone to seek healing from a backache that had troubled her for years,” said the 43-year-old, explaining that the church offered promises of health.

The family initially kept in touch with their mother, asking when she would come home after being healed. She kept making promises to return, but never did. Achieng tried to convince her mother to leave the place, she said, but her attempts were in vain.

“At some point, she stopped talking to us, and when my younger brother and I went to inquire how she was doing, we were sent away from the church and told that unless we were willing to join the church, we were not welcome in there,” she said.

After the raid last month, Achieng learned her mother was among those rescued but says she does not want anything to do with her family.

While many worshipers’ families wait to hear about their relatives, one family knows for sure they will never see their loved one again.

Dan Ayoo Obura – a police constable – was one of those who died at the church compound, reportedly on March 27, according to local media reports.

He had been introduced to the church by his wife, who was a leader there, his relatives said.

Obura had left his workplace at the General Service Unit police headquarters in Nairobi in February before travelling home to Kisumu County on sick leave, according to his uncle Dickson Otieno.

He was taken to a hospital in the area, but after a week at the facility, “he disappeared”, Otieno told Al Jazeera.

“We reported to the police and started looking for him everywhere, panicked that we might never see him again. Later, we had information from some neighbours that he is in Migori at a church. That’s when we went there to ask the church leaders where he was. They told us he was not at the church and had not seen him.

“About a month later, they called us to say that the person we were looking for had died the previous night and that they had buried him that day.”

The family then informed the police and human rights activists like Kiarie, and travelled to Opapo to try and locate his body.

Kiarie, who is a rights defender and paralegal at the Nyando Social Justice Centre, accompanied the family to Opapo in March.

“We’ve not been given the body,” she told Al Jazeera, explaining that she interviewed residents and church members while in Opapo and heard concerning reports about what was happening at the compound.

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No one was allowed to have an intimate relationship at the church, she said, while husbands and wives were required to separate after joining. These practices were echoed by the compound’s neighbours in Migori.

“There are also serious claims of sexual violence at the church where the male leaders were having sex with the girls and women there,” Kiarie said. “That was why they did not want any man inside to touch the women because they belonged to them,” she alleged.

Kiarie said since the police raid, the compound’s neighbours have also reported there may be more than just two bodies buried inside – which she said could be what is delaying Obura’s exhumation. “They’re still waiting because they said the issue has been picked up by the national government, and they [the national authorities] want to exhume the other bodies [that may be there],” she said.

Kiarie feels the Migori church may prove to be another case like the Shakahola cult “massacre” if it is found that more people indeed died and were buried there without their families’ knowledge.

From Shakahola to Migori

The events in Migori have opened wounds for many survivors and relatives of the 429 people who were starved to death in Kilifi County’s Shakahola, in 2023.

Led by Pastor Paul McKenzie, the congregants there also left their families and abandoned property, seeking to go to heaven and meet their messiah. But news reports said that at the church, they were radicalised and brainwashed, convinced that if they stopped eating they would die peacefully, go to heaven and meet their god.

Both Grace Kazungu’s parents and two of her siblings perished in the Shakhola church cult, says the 32-year-old mother of three from Kilifi.

Whenever she and her brother tried to question the church’s teachings, the others would not hear a word against it, she told Al Jazeera.

“They would argue that we were ‘anti-Christ’ and that their church was the only sacred and holy way to heaven,” she said.

“Months later, I heard from my brother that they had sold the family’s property and were going to live inside the church after ditching earthly possessions.

“We tried to reach them but were blocked by their leader. My husband broke the news to me one morning after a year that they had been found inside the forest and they were dead and buried.”

After their deaths, they were buried in mass graves within the Shakahola Forest where the church was located. Upon discovery, following a tip from the local media, the police launched an operation to cordon off the area so they could exhume the bodies, test for DNA, and return the deceased to their relatives for proper burial.

They later arrested the church leader, McKenzie, and charged him with the murder of 191 people, child torture, and “terrorism”. He and several other co-accused remain in police custody, pending sentencing.

Unlike Shakahola, the Migori church allowed its followers to work, eat and run businesses in the nearby Opapo and Rongo towns. But like Shakahola, it also kept them living apart from the rest of society, barred them from accessing school, marriage and medical care, and severely punished supposed transgressions, according to locals who heard and witnessed violent beatings and fights inside the compound.

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In many societies, religious leaders are widely respected and trusted, and they often influence beliefs and actions in the private and public spheres, explained Fathima Azmiya Badurdee, a postdoctoral researcher in the faculty of Religion, Culture and Society at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

“People are in search of ‘hope’ in the daily issues they confront. Religious leaders are pivotal in this role in providing hope to sustain their futures … or even in life after death,” she explained.

Still, “awareness among religious communities on opportunistic leadership and cult dynamics is needed,” she said, referring to the Opapo and Shakahola forest cases.

“Many people blindly trust religious leaders without questioning them. Words and opinions of religious leaders are taken as the gospel truth. The lack of questioning, critical thinking skills, or even the lack of religious literacy often influences individuals to believe in any extreme forms propagated by these leaders,” she added.

‘I fear she might die’

Most of the 57 Migori worshippers are now back in society once more. However, police extended the detention of four key suspects while investigations and autopsies continued this month.

Assistant county commissioner Kingoku declined to provide details to Al Jazeera about any charges against the worshippers, saying they did not appear in court.

Meanwhile, the Kenya National Police Service spokesperson Michael Muchiri told Al Jazeera: “All individuals found culpable will be taken through the prosecution process as guided by the law.”

Investigations are ongoing into Obura’s cause of death, verification of additional burials alleged by residents, and a probe into whether the church operated as an unregistered “company” rather than a licensed religious organisation.

According to the county commissioner, Mutua Kisilu, the church had been irregularly registered as a company. After the raid last month, Nyanza regional commissioner, Florence Mworoa, announced a region-wide crackdown on unregistered churches.

Muchiri said the government regulates religious outfits in the country and will bring to book all those found to have broken the law.

“Any illegally operating organisation – the government has been clear about it – is quickly shut down. Prosecution, like in the Migori case, follows. Identification of such ‘cult-like’ illegal religious entities is through the local intelligence and security teams and information from the local people,” Muchiri said.

In the meantime in Homa Bay, Achieng finally heard from her mother one last time after the worshippers were released from custody. She told her daughter that she had found a new home and that her family were “worldly” people who she should never associate with again.

“I thought of going to get her from police custody and secure her release, but I [was] worried that she will not agree to go home with me,” Achieng told Al Jazeera. She believes her mother will never return home. “I fear she might die [at the church].”

Meanwhile in Kisumu, Obura’s family continues to mourn him as they work with Kiarie’s organisation and the police to try and secure a court order allowing them to exhume his remains.

All they want, they say, is to transfer him from the church to his ancestral home to bury him according to Luo culture and traditions.

“We are not interested in a lot of things,” Otieno said. “We just want the body of our son so we can bury him here at home. Just that.”

Ex-president can be buried in Zambia against family’s wishes, court rules

Edgar Lungu was president of Zambia from six years – from 2015 until 2021

The dispute follows a long-standing feud between Lungu and his successor, President Hakainde Hichilema, with Lungu’s family saying he had indicated that Hichilema should not attend his funeral.

The Zambian state welcomed the ruling, saying that while it mourned with the former statesman’s family, Lungu “belongs to the nation”.

Lungu’s family had wanted to bury him privately in South Africa, where he died in June. They were left visibly distraught by the Pretoria high court’s decision and intend to lodge an appeal.

A South African court has ruled that Zambia’s government can repatriate the body of former President Edgar Lungu and give him a state funeral, despite his family’s opposition.

Handing down the ruling, judge Aubrey Ledwaba said the Zambian government was “entitled to repatriate the body of the late president” and ordered his family to “immediately surrender” it to authorities.

Following Lungu’s death from an undisclosed illness at the age of 68, the family wanted to be in charge of the funeral arrangements, including the repatriation of his body, but the Zambian authorities sought to take control.

The government and his family later agreed he would have a state funeral before relations broke down over the precise arrangements, prompting the family to opt for a burial in South Africa.

The former president’s elder sister Bertha Lungu cried in court after the verdict was announced.

Speaking over the loud wails, Zambian Attorney General Mulilo D Kabesha said the ruling was not a win for the government but rather “what makes good sense”.

“When you are the father of the nation, you can’t restrict yourself to your immediate family,” he said.

Mr Kabesha praised the court for making a “sound judgment” and said that while the family had a right to appeal, this was a “learning curve” for those aspiring to the highest office.

The family has since said it intends to “appeal against the whole judgment and order” made by Mr Ledwaba.

This means Lungu’s body will remain in South Africa until the appeal is heard.

The BBC understands that private security services have been enlisted to protect Lungu’s remains at the morgue in Pretoria following repeated attempts to remove the body without authorisation.

Lungu led Zambia from 2015 until 2021 when he lost the election to Hichilema by a large margin.

After that defeat he stepped back from politics but later returned to the fray.

Self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie is facing trial in the coastal city of Mombasa. (EPA Images pic)

NAIROBI : At least five bodies, including two children, exhumed on Kenya’s coast are linked to an infamous starvation cult that came to light in 2023, police told AFP today.

More than 400 people died in one of the world’s worst cult-related tragedies, which became known as the “Shakahola Forest Massacre”, discovered inland from the Indian Ocean town of Malindi.

The case rocked the country and made headlines globally, with self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie facing trial in the coastal city of Mombasa.

He has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of manslaughter.

Officers had excavated at least 27 sites further along the coast from Shakahola at a five-acre site near Binzaro village in Kilifi county’s Chakama area, directorate of criminal investigations (DCI) officer Robert Kiinge told AFP.

“We retrieved five bodies,” he said.

Kiinge said that the majority of the remains were in a state of advanced decomposition, indicating they had been in the ground for over a year, although he said one may have been buried as recently as seven to eight months ago.

“We had two remains of children,” he said, estimating their ages as between five and seven years old.

“Looking at what we are working on now there is no doubt there is connection with the old Shakahola,” he said.

Eleven people have been taken into custody, Kiinge said, although three of them are being treated as victims.

“The people we have in custody today are followers of Mackenzie,” he said.

The investigation was ongoing, Kiinge added, noting that until scheduled post-mortems they would not speculate on the cause of death.

The fresh discoveries come after a Mombasa court earlier this month adjourned the ongoing case of the Shakahola preacher, Mackenzie, citing the discovery of new evidence.

Shakahola led the government to move towards tighter control of fringe religious groups, after accusations that it could have prevented the deaths.

Efforts to regulate religion in the majority-Christian country have been fiercely opposed in the past as undermining constitutional guarantees of the division between church and state.