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Updated: Death toll in Kenyan starvation cult rises to 73, police say

"Zardiw, CULTS - Watch out for tell-tale signs
"OK. Well I think islam is a unique religion (actually a way of life),""

Kenyan President William Ruto said the religious cult mass deaths were ‘akin to terrorism’.

Update - Somewhat related: Don't stand on the sidelines
Steve Schmidt
[...]The cloistered bubbles that comprise the habitats of MAGA judges, ideologues, grifters, militia leaders, neo-Nazis, anti-government nihilists, Proud Boys, Leonard Leo, Matt Schlapp, Fox News, NewsMax and OAN propagandists have their own reality. Didn’t you know? They are trying to save America from the godless tyranny that says all men and women are created equally in the 21st century, and that American freedom means freedom for everyone. They exist in the world where Viktor Orban is an idol, and Putin is a hero. They celebrate gun extremism, political extremism, religious extremism, and increasingly, make clear their ominous and violent intentions. They want power. The MAGA movement is a beautiful mosaic of corruption, extremism and cynicism that delivers nothing to the American people, while fulfilling every fantasy list for every debauched special interest imaginable so long as they praise Trump. The MAGA movement is a hideous amalgam of retrograde discrimination, dogmatic ideologies, and a narcissistic cult of personality that has nostalgia for a different America that was whiter, more male and less free. This is the backlash and it is building.
P - There is a remedy. It’s simple. The American people should stop this movement cold. They should crush it under a banner that demands better and starts with a coherent vision for the future of American society.
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Biden is striving to do just that.


Forensic experts and homicide detectives carry the bodies of suspected members of a Christian cult who
believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death, in Shakahola forest of Kilifi
county, Kenya, April 22, 2023 [Reuters]

Published On 24 Apr 202324 Apr 2023
|
Updated:
25 Apr 2023
04:55 AM (GMT)

Kenyan police have now recovered 73 bodies, mostly from mass graves in a forest in eastern Kenya, thought to be followers of a Christian cult who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves, authorities said.

The death toll, which has repeatedly risen as exhumations have been carried out, could rise further. The Kenyan Red Cross said 112 people have been reported missing to a tracing and counselling desk it has set up at a local hospital.

Followers of the self-proclaimed Good News International Church had been living in several secluded settlements in a 324-hectare (800-acre) area within the Shakahola Forest.

The death toll stands at 73, with 26 new bodies exhumed on Monday, Malindi sub-county police chief John Kemboi told the Associated Press news agency.

Kemboi said investigators had received reinforcements and were able to cover more ground.

The cult’s leader, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested on April 14 following a tip-off that suggested the existence of shallow graves containing the bodies of at least 31 of his followers. National Police chief Japhet Koome said 14 other cult members were in custody.

Mackenzie was arraigned on April 15 at Malindi Law Courts, where the judge gave police 14 days to conduct investigations while he was kept in detention. Kenyan media have reported that he is refusing food and water.

There has been no comment from any representative for Mackenzie so far.

Video Duration 01:42 - Kenya police investigate graves of suspected cult victims

“What we are seeing … is akin to terrorism,” Kenya’s President William Ruto said on Monday.

Ruto said he had instructed law enforcement agencies to thoroughly investigate the matter as a criminal case not linked to any religion.

Ruto, elected in 2022, was hyped as the country’s first evangelical Christian president and has not been shy about his faith, openly praying and weeping in churches before his election.

He has nominated several pastors into parliament and government agencies like the anticorruption commission.

Mackenzie had been arrested twice before — in 2019 and in March of this year — in relation to the deaths of children. Each time, he was released on bond, and both cases are still proceeding through the court.

Local politicians have urged the court not to release him this time, decrying the spread of cults in the Malindi area.

Cults are common in Kenya, which has a largely religious society.

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/24/death-toll-in-kenyan-starvation-cult-rises-to-58-police

*

Kenya case sparks memories of worst cult-related mass deaths

At least 90 bodies have been found at the ranch of a Kenyan pastor who is accused of telling his followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus

By GERALD IMRAY Associated Press
April 26, 2023, 6:26 AM

At least 90 bodies have been found at the ranch of a pastor in Kenya who is accused of telling his followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus, and the death toll could rise with the Kenya Red Cross Society saying 213 people are missing.

It has sparked memories of some of the world's worst cases of cult-related mass deaths.

JONESTOWN

More than 900 men, women and children died when American preacher and Peoples Temple leader Jim Jones orchestrated a ritual of mass suicide and murder by ordering followers to drink a cyanide-laced grape drink at their jungle settlement in Guyana in 1978.

The settlement and the cult deaths gained worldwide infamy as Jonestown.

Although the deaths were initially referred to as mass suicide, survivors claimed some followers were shot, injected with poison, or forced to drink the beverage by guards.

The deaths followed a visit to the settlement by a San Francisco congressman. As Rep. Leo Ryan was about to return to the United States with journalists and temple members who wanted to leave, they were ambushed on an airstrip. Ryan, three journalists and a defector were killed.

Jones then urged 912 followers to drink the grape punch. The gruesome mass deaths ritual was captured on the “Death Tape,” an audio recording on a cassette tape believed to have been set up by Jones.

He was found dead with a gunshot wound to the head, leaving speculation as to whether it was suicide or murder.

WACO

A 51-day standoff between federal agents and members of the Branch Davidians religious group led by David Koresh ended in a huge fire at their ranch compound just outside Waco, Texas in 1993. More than 70 Branch Davidians, including Koresh, died inside the compound. Authorities said the Branch Davidians started the blaze.

The nearly two-month siege began when agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to execute search and arrest warrants at the Mount Carmel Center ranch on Feb. 28, 1993, suspecting Koresh of stockpiling weapons.

The botched raid resulted in a gun battle that left an initial six Branch Davidians and four agents dead. The FBI and Koresh entered into weeks of negotiations, during which Koresh allowed some women and children to leave. He told federal agents he was waiting for “further instruction from God."

The FBI finally led an assault on the ranch on April 19, during which the buildings were burned to the ground. Some of the Branch Davidians were found fatally shot by other members, some died of suffocation and smoke inhalation. Koresh was found dead with a gunshot wound to the forehead.

HEAVEN'S GATE

When Sheriff's deputies went to a million-dollar mansion in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe in March 1997, they discovered the bodies of 39 men and women lying on bunks wearing identical black clothing and black and white shoes, their faces and chests covered with a triangular shroud of purple cloth.

Investigators ultimately pieced together a mass suicide by the Heaven's Gate cult led by Marshall Applewhite, who was also one of the dead.

He had recorded videos of himself saying that mass suicide was the only way for him and his followers to evacuate Earth, and they were timing their deaths to coincide with the appearance of the Hale-Bopp comet, which was a warning that “heaven's gate” was closing. The comet would be followed by a spacecraft that would take their souls to a higher level of existence, Applewhite said.

To prepare, Applewhite and his 38 followers took the anti-seizure drug phenobarbital mixed with apple sauce or pudding. Most of them also drank vodka to enhance the drug’s potency and they tied plastic bags over their heads so they would suffocate.

UGANDA DOOMSDAY SECT

Authorities first believed that more than 500 members of a reclusive sect in southwest Uganda known as the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God died in a mass suicide in 2000 when their chapel was set alight and they burned alive.

But when the bodies of six men were discovered nearby with stab wounds and evidence of strangulation, it changed to a mass murder investigation. More bodies were also discovered in mass graves at other sites. Ultimately, more than 700 people died in the Kanungu cult massacres.

It's believed that cult leader Joseph Kibweteere had convinced followers to confess their sins and sell their possessions in preparation for the end of the world on Jan. 1, 2000. When that didn't happen, followers became disillusioned. Kibweteere chose a new date for the end of the world; March 17.

After a party, where followers ate meat and drank coca-cola, 530 died in the fire in the church. Authorities later found that the windows and doors had been boarded up to prevent anyone escaping.

Leaders of the sect are also suspected of killing hundreds of followers at other sites by poisoning them. No one has been held accountable and Kibweteere disappeared on the day of the church fire.

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/kenya-case-sparks-memories-worst-cult-related-mass-98841358