In the Shakahola forest, silence was never really silence. It was hunger, waiting, obedience.
It was the slow sound of bodies giving way, one after another, convinced that stopping eating was an act of faith and not a condemnation.
Elders, entire families, children, convinced by a self-proclaimed enlightened preacher who had made disciples on YouTube, predicting the end of the world and assuring believers that the only way to save eternal life was to present themselves before Jesus “pure and clean.”
The Kenyan Public Prosecutor's Office has now formally closed one of the main strands of the case against Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, the alleged mastermind of what remains one of the most serious mass killings linked to religious extremism in East Africa.
Along with him, 96 other defendants will face charges related to radicalization and organized crime before the Shanzu court. Proceedings for murder and manslaughter remain open in Mombasa.
The numbers do not help us understand, but they are damning.
 
At least 429 confirmed deaths. Among them, many children. The Kenyan Red Cross reports 613 missing persons.
Mass graves, piled-up corpses, bodies in an advanced state of decomposition.
 
Two fetuses found in the wombs of women who died of starvation.
Nothing accidental. Nothing spontaneous.
According to investigators, for over ten years Mackenzie used his church, the Good News International Church, as a tool of isolation and control. The Bible bent, the apocalypse announced, fear cultivated.
 
The faithful were urged to cut all ties with society, to abandon school, medical care, and families.
To hand over their possessions and children.
To retreat to the Shakahola forest, inland from Malindi, to “wait for Jesus” by fasting until death.
The trial, which began on July 8, 2024, heard from 96 witnesses: survivors, doctors, pathologists, investigators. Nearly 500 pieces of evidence were presented in court. They all tell the same story: not an individual choice, but systematic indoctrination. Not suicide, but a chain of obedience.
Mackenzie, arrested in April 2023 after initial reports from family members, had gathered his followers about 80 kilometers from Malindi, along the road to Tsavo. There he promised salvation and distributed death, even establishing a calendar: first the children, then the women, then the men. He, always alive.
The judiciary is now tightening the net, but the feeling remains bitter. For months, perhaps years, no one saw or no one wanted to see. The forest was there. The sermons circulated on YouTube and WhatsApp. There had been reports. Yet hunger continued to do its work, silently.
Shakahola is not just a place. It is an open wound in the conscience of a country. It tells the story of what can happen when poverty, ignorance, and despair meet those who promise paradise in exchange for life. It also tells us that justice, when it comes, always comes too late.
After the graves. After the children. After the silence.