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Toll rises to 110 in Kenyan cult starvation deaths

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Police and local residents load the exhumed bodies of victims of a religious cult into the back of a truck in the village of Shakahola, near the coastal city of Malindi, in southern Kenya Sunday, April 23, 2023. Dozens of bodies have been discovered so far in shallow graves in a forest near land owned by a pastor Paul Makenzi in coastal Kenya who was arrested for telling his followers to fast to death. (AP Photo)
Original Publication Date: May 1, 2023 5:54AM
Publication Updated: April 13, 2025 12:51PM

MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) — Kenyan officials say the number of deaths linked to a cult on the country’s Indian Ocean coast has risen to 110.

Heavy rains stalled the exhumation process for the third day as government pathologists began autopsies. The official number of victims had been at 103 until Monday and could rise as the investigation continues.

According to the Kenyan Interior Ministry, five people have been found alive over the last two days by searches and aerial surveillance of the 50,000-acre Chakama ranch.

The autopsies began a day after President William Ruto announced that his government would soon establish a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate the deaths.

Opposition leader Raila Odinga said Monday that the Kenyan parliament should “establish whether the deaths … were acts of rogue pastors, human sacrifices or body-organ trade.”

Leaders from the region and human-rights organizations have criticized the government’s slow pace of rescues, and its denying journalists and activists access to the forest.

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