INTERNACIONAL
Kenya starts to hand over to relatives the bodies of 429 members of a doomsday cult
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya’s government on Tuesday began handing over to relatives the bodies of 429 members of a doomsday cult at the center of a legal case that has shocked the country.
Exhumed bodies from a vast rural area in coastal Kenya have shown signs of starvation and strangulation. Cult leader Paul Mackenzie is accused of asking his followers to starve themselves to death to meet Jesus and now faces charges that include murder.
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Authorities are using DNA testing to help identify bodies and their families. On Tuesday, the first bodies were handed over to relatives. Emotions ran high at the Malindi mortuary as families collected loved ones for reburial. Some wailed, overwhelmed.
Kenya Cult Deaths
Morgue workers move a body of a victim of a religious cult for burial in Malindi Funeral home in Kilifi, Kenya Tuesday, March. 26, 2024. Kenya government on Tuesday released seven bodies of victims, who died due to starvation to their families for burial. Some 34 bodies, out of the 429 that were exhumed last year, were positively identified. ( AP Photo/Andrew Kasuku)
Francis Wanje, a father who lost his daughter and seven other family members, pointed at a hearse carrying four bodies.
«We lost eight members of our family,» Wanje said. «We were supposed to get five, but were told that one of the children did not match the DNA.
«So now we have been given only four (bodies). So we are still hoping that perhaps in the future, we are going to get the other four.»
Mackenzie and dozens of his associates were charged in February with the torture and murder of 191 children. The trial begins on April 23. Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki has declared Mackenzie’s Good News International Ministries a criminal organized group.
Mackenzie is serving a separate one-year prison sentence after being found guilty of operating a film studio and producing films without a valid license.
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Some outraged Kenyans have asked how authorities didn’t notice any sign of the mass deaths much earlier.
The Kenya Human Rights Commission last week said police failed to act on reports that could have prevented the deaths in the remote Shakahola area. Several reports had been filed at police stations by people whose relatives had entered the forested area.
Israel sent tanks into the West Bank on Sunday for the first time since 2002, telling its military to prepare for «an extended stay» as the Jewish state remains determined to stamp out terrorism in the territory’s refugee camps.
Several tanks were seen moving into Jenin as a fragile ceasefire between the terrorist organization Hamas and Israel remains in place.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to «increase the intensity of the activity to thwart terrorism» across the West Bank.
Katz said troops will remain «for the coming year» in parts of the territory and indicated that Palestinians who have fled cannot return.
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An Israeli tank drives toward the West Bank on Feb. 23, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)
«We will not allow the return of residents, and we will not allow terrorism to return and grow,» he said.
Earlier, Katz said he instructed the military to prepare for «an extended stay» in some of the West Bank’s urban areas, from which he said about 40,000 Palestinians have fled, leaving the areas «emptied of residents.» That figure was confirmed by the United Nations.
An Israeli tank maneuvers during an Israeli operation in Jenin, in the West Bank, on Feb. 23, 2025. (REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta)
Netanyahu said Israeli forces will remain «as long as needed.»
The Palestinian foreign ministry called the Israeli moves «a dangerous escalation of the situation in the West Bank.»
MEET EDAN ALEXANDER, THE LAST LIVING AMERICAN HOSTAGE IN HAMAS CAPTIVITY
Tanks were last deployed in the territory in 2002, when Israel fought against deadly Palestinian violence.
The move on Sunday comes as the delicate ceasefire deal that was reached a month ago between Hamas and Israel remains in place.
An Israeli military vehicle is shown in Jenin, in the West Bank, on Feb. 23, 2025. (REUTERS/Raneen Sawafta)
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Hamas freed six hostages on Saturday in exchange for more than 600 Palestinian prisoners as part of the agreement. Netanyahu has said 63 hostages remain, including the remains of a soldier captured in 2014.
The conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists from the Gaza Strip led an assault in southern Israel, killing more than 1,100 people and abducting about 250 more.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Israel moves tanks into West Bank for first time since 2002
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