Kenya: Cult leader guilty of murdering 190 children, 1 adult

A court in Mombasa, Kenya, on Monday found self-proclaimed preacher Paul Mackenzie and 28 associates guilty of murdering 190 children and one adult as part of a notorious Christian starvation cult.

Mackenzie established his so-called Good News International Church in 2003 and was alleged to have incited his followers to starve themselves to death in order to "meet Jesus."

He was arrested in April 2023 after a rights group informed authorities.

Some of his acolytes were rescued but the subsequent police operation exposed hundreds of mass graves at a forest site near the Kenyan beach resort of Malindi.

Local media dubbed the case the "Shakahola Forest Massacre."

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"I am satisfied that the prosecution has proved the case against all the 29 accused persons for the murder of 190 children and one adult," said Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache after a hearing which lasted over eight hours.

The prosecution had said Mackenzie "initiated and directed" extreme fasting at his 800-acre (325 hectare) ranch in Shakahola Forest, claiming there was a "structured hierarchy of death" which said children should die first, followed by teenagers, women, and then men.

Post-mortems and police reports revealed that the children mostly died from starvation, but also from "asphyxia, neck compression and traumatic head injury," prosecutors said.

The court in Mombasa also heard that, in some cases, children were isolated and denied food while their parents watched.

"This is a very, very important day," said Francis Wanje, 62, who lost eight family members, including his daughter and two grandchildren, at Shakahola.

"We are expecting a ruling that will be a lesson to the whole public, so that such kinds of things will not happen again," he told the AFP news agency, expressing anger over the government's initial inaction.

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Mackenzie facing even more Shakahola charges

Since the initial discovery of the graves, even more bodies of children, women and men have been unearthed, bringing the total to well over 400. The soaring death toll has even required sporadic pauses in excavations as local morgues ran out of space.

In January 2026, Mackenzie was charged over a further 52 bodies found at a nearby village.

There have been calls in Kenya for tougher regulations on religious organizations after it emerged that Mackenzie had been arrested twice in the past but released.

He was arrested in 2017 on charges of "radicalization" but was acquitted. He was arrested again in 2019 in relation to two child deaths at Shakahola, but released on bail.

His sentencing will take place on November 6. 

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