In the Shakaola forest, some sixty kilometres inland from Malindi, digging continues.
In the 350-hectare site, owned by the controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, 264 bodies that had been buried in mass graves have so far been exhumed.
They all belonged to followers of the now infamous 'fasting sect', the 'International Church of the Good News', as Mackenzie had called the cult of which he was a leader, founded in Malindi and then popularised with sermons on YouTube. In his final year he preached for his followers to fast completely in order to ascend to heaven before Satan took over the world and 'meet Jesus'.

Many believed him, but according to investigators, his was not blind madness or a delirium of omnipotence, but a well-orchestrated deadly scam on the faithful who handed over all their possessions to him in exchange for a hut in Shakaola. In mass graves excavated by the police in just over a month, entire families with children were found, now reduced to skin and bones.
According to the autopsies conducted in Malindi by the government's anatomist, some of the cult's victims would have ended up strangled or asphyxiated and not just dead from food abstinence.

Yet, the belief of almost all of them was total, and this is even more chilling: 95 people, when the bodies buried in the forest were discovered, were found still alive, albeit in an advanced state of decay. Once they were transferred to the hospital, some of them gave up food, asking to be allowed to continue fasting in order to reach the happy conclusion envisaged by their 'guru'.
The Minister of Home Affairs, Kithure Kindiki, who has called for Mackenzie to be convicted of genocide, likening the 'Shakaola massacre' to an act of terrorism, has stated in recent days that 349 bodies may still lie in the ground. Many have been pointed out by relatives of alleged sect followers who are missing and were probably in the hinterland area.

The dramatic affair that is distressing Kenya and calling all religious and political components to an examination of conscience (just think that to found a Protestant cult it is enough to apply for a licence...) is unfortunately not yet over, while (if it were not just to shudder, one would say 'irony of fate') the self-styled pastor of Malindi has begun a hunger strike to protest against the conditions in the town's prisons and against the words of Minister Kindiki himself. He, however, will probably never see Jesus: millions of Kenyans wish him to burn eternally in the flames of hell.