After days of searches in the forest, of national prominence with the intervention of President Ruto, of macabre findings in the hinterland of Malindi, yesterday the police suspended the search for the followers of the sect of the 'fasting cult to see Jesus', as the church founded by the Kenyan preacher and self-styled 'pastor' Paul Mackenzie Nthenge is now called. The madman (there is no other word more sadly suitable to describe him) is under arrest in Malindi prisons, but he has left a trail of death that so far amounts to 90 corpses, found in land belonging to him in the remote village of Shakaola, on the road from the coastal town to the Tsavo National Park.
Yesterday, after the last 24 findings, including those of many children, the police suspended the search for one simple reason: the morgue in Malindi has no more places to hold the bodies of the sect's followers who have allowed themselves to die of hunger and thirst, following the instructions of Nthenge, who preaches total fasting in order to finally be able to sit at the Lord's side.
How this criminal could have appealed to the ignorance and naivety of so many of his fellow countrymen, who came from all over the country and not only of low social extraction, remains a mystery, apart from his past as an 'influencer' with a very popular YouTube channel. Meanwhile, the Ministry of the Interior, Kithure Kindiki, announced that the mass graves are not finished and that the number of dead could rise in the coming days. The Red Cross estimated that a total of 212 people are missing in Shakaola, although yesterday 29 followers in serious condition were found in the forest and taken to hospital.