{"id":2975,"date":"2026-10-19T23:03:49","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2975"},"modified":"2026-10-19T23:03:49","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T18:03:49","slug":"kenyan-starvation-cult-leader-convicted-in-deaths-of-nearly-200-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2975","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan starvation cult leader convicted in deaths of nearly 200 children"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Kenyan court on Monday found starvation cult leader Paul Mackenzie and about 30 others guilty of murder over the deaths of 190 children and one adult in one of the world\u2019s worst cult-related \u200bdisasters in recent history.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mackenzie and his co-accused will be given their sentence on November 6.<\/p>\n

He was arrested in 2023 after police received a tip-off, \u200cand weeks later authorities began uncovering bodies in shallow graves in the Shakahola Forest near the coast in southeastern Kenya.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say Mackenzie and his Good News International Church organised a Christian doomsday sect in which they ordered followers to starve themselves and their children to death to go to heaven before the world ended.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie denied murder charges, saying he did not force the victims to starve, \u200bbut the court rejected that argument.<\/p>\n

In total, more than 400 bodies have been recovered from the Shakahola Forest. Many were severely decomposed, with only 26 \u200bbodies able to be identified.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s judgment covered 191 deaths while investigations into the other deaths are ongoing.<\/p>\n

<\/a>FAMILIES IN COURT TO HEAR VERDICT<\/h3>\n

Justice \u2060Diana Kavedza Mochache said in a hearing lasting more than eight hours that in some cases children were isolated and denied food while their parents watched.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie was \u200bin court, wearing a striped polo shirt and red trousers, sitting alongside his wife, who is one of the co-accused.<\/p>\n

When his name was read out by the judge, he \u200bstood silently, staring into space.<\/p>\n

Family members of some of those who died in the forest gathered to hear the judgment at Mombasa High Court.<\/p>\n

Francis Wanje, 62, lost eight family members, including two grandchildren, to the cult.<\/p>\n

Speaking before the verdict, he told Reuters:<\/em> \u201cIt has been really a heavy thing (for) us as a family, and it has really taken us very far in terms of psychological problems, \u2026 I \u200bwas hoping for this particular day.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Shakahola tragedy has gripped Kenya since the discovery of mass graves in the coastal forest more than three years ago.<\/p>\n

It raised questions \u200bover how Mackenzie was able to continue to operate despite having been on the radar of the authorities since 2017, when his premises were searched by police.<\/p>\n

In 2019, authorities shut down \u200cMackenzie\u2019s church \u2060, and he relocated to the Shakahola Forest, police said.<\/p>\n

The case has also led to calls for tougher oversight of churches and other religious organisations in a country where religious faith plays a prominent role in public life.<\/p>\n

Kenyan President William Ruto said in 2023 that government agencies should have been able to prevent the deaths. He said he took responsibility as president.<\/p>\n

<\/a>CHILDREN WERE FIRST TO STARVE<\/h3>\n

People with direct knowledge of the cult\u2019s activities told Reuters<\/em> that Mackenzie planned the mass starvation in three phases: first children, then women and \u200byoung men, and finally the remaining men.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie forbade cult \u2060members from sending their children to school and from going to hospital when they were ill, branding such institutions as Satanic, some of his followers told Reuters<\/em> for a 2023 article.<\/p>\n

Cult members lived in makeshift homes of polythene sheeting and thatch that Mackenzie \u200bdivided into areas with biblical names like Jerusalem and Judea.<\/p>\n

The plight of his followers began to emerge in mid-March 2023, \u200bwhen a local man \u2060told police that his brother and wife had starved their children to death in the forest on Mackenzie\u2019s orders.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie was arrested but released on bail, after which relatives say he brought forward the date on which he told his followers the world would end. Police arrested him again in April 2023 and started combing through the forest more systematically and began \u2060exhuming mass \u200bgraves.<\/p>\n

Mackenzie faces other charges over the forest deaths, including terrorism-related ones, which he has denied.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors say while \u200bhe was in detention, he also directed the deaths of 52 people in Kwa Binzaro village, which lies about 30 km (18 miles) from Shakahola. Mackenzie has pleaded not guilty in that case.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Kenyan court on Monday found starvation cult leader Paul Mackenzie and about 30 others guilty of murder over the deaths of 190 children and one adult in one of the world\u2019s worst cult-related \u200bdisasters in recent history. Mackenzie and his co-accused will be given their sentence on November 6. He was arrested in 2023 after police received a tip-off, \u200cand weeks later authorities began uncovering bodies in shallow graves in the Shakahola Forest near the coast in southeastern Kenya. Prosecutors say Mackenzie and his Good News International Church organised…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}