Four people starve to death in Malindi cult-like church

Police sounded an alarm about the rising rate of cultism in the area saying there was a need for serious attention to the issue.

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• Security agents had been tipped off that there were dozens of people starving to death at a private farm in the area.

Crime scene
Image: FILE

At least four people died and 11 were rescued while emaciated from a cult-like church in Malindi, Kilifi County.

Police sounded an alarm about the rising rate of cultism in the area saying there was a need for serious attention to the issue.

Security agents had been tipped off that there were dozens of people starving to death at a private farm in the area.

The victims were starving after being informed this was part of the way to go and meet Jesus.

Police investigations revealed instances of deep-rooted cultism, where individuals exhibit unusual characteristics of being wild, violent and secretive.

According to police, the person behind the brainwashing was a pastor of a local church in the area.

The individual has in the past been arrested by police over a similar issue.

The informer who was an insider in the church further alleged that there is a mass shallow grave of victims of that brainwashing totaling 31 bodies in an unidentified place at Shakahola Forest within Langobaya in Malindi Sub County.

On Thursday, April 13, a contingent of police visited the scene on a fact-finding mission and managed to reach a few households.

Police said they managed to rescue 15 people.

Six of the victims were severely emaciated and in critical condition.

Medics from Malindi were called in to assist in evacuation but while in the process of rescuing the victims, four of them died, police said.

They could not walk when the police arrived.

The other 11 rescued victims were admitted to Malindi sub-county hospital.

Three of them are in critical condition, officials said.

A video circulating on some of the victims showed the veracity of the cult as they were badly emaciated due to starvation.

Police said they could not get details of the deceased and will need to do it through the elimination of fingerprints which were taken for identification.

Most of those admitted to the hospital were not from the area.

They had travelled there from western Kenya on an unknown date for the mission.

The team were unable to identify the mass grave by virtue of vast land and hostile residents in the forest, police said.

It is further suspected that there are many victims in the forest land believed to belong to the suspect, police said.

The bodies were taken to Malindi Sub-County Hospital mortuary pending identification and autopsy.

No arrest was made at the time and efforts to get the owner of the occult church are ongoing.

We could not get a comment from the owner of the church. Residents have been telling security chiefs of the cult's existence in the area.

The revelations came after the cult leader was apprehended on allegations of directing parents to starve two children to death to protect them from a looming catastrophe in the past.

According to one of the survivors, the fasting was allegedly meant to assure children of ascension to heaven and save them from a looming calamity.

Allegedly, the pastor encouraged his congregants to fast, especially children.

He reportedly believed that the future is full of disasters and that children should die and inherit the kingdom of God.

Malindi sub-County police boss John Kemboi said special attention is being paid to the issue for now.

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