“We once found 12 bodies of children in a line inside a grave,” James told the BBC. He was one of the men hired to dig up Shakahola Forest in Kilifi County, on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast. “The bodies were arranged like clothes,” he went on, “One on top of another.” Some had their hands and legs tied and their bodies wrapped in bedsheets. More than 400 bodies have been recovered. More than 600 individuals are still officially considered to be ‘missing.’ At Kwa Binzaro forest, a related nearby site, investigators have recovered 53 more bodies and 44 body parts. Only 14 have been identified.
Those who died didn’t walk into the forest at gunpoint but holding their Bibles.
On October 19, 2026, Honourable Lady Justice Diana Rachel Kavedza-Mochache of the High Court in Mombasa convicted Good News International Ministries leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie and 28 followers of murdering 191 people, all but one of them children. Separate criminal trials for Mackenzie and his henchmen are still pending—involving charges of terrorism, radicalisation, promoting violent extremism, and cruelty to children. Mackenzie had instructed parents to starve their own children so that they could “meet Jesus,” and his followers believed he was “Jesus’s mouthpiece.” Those who died did not walk into the forest at gunpoint; they did so holding their Bibles.
Mackenzie founded his church in the coastal town of Malindi in 2003, and promoted his apocalyptic message by television. After pressure from authorities, in 2019 he closed his church and moved to Shakahola Forest, a remote stretch of bush near the Galana River, calling followers from across Kenya to join him.
According to one of his co-accused, anyone who resisted suicide by fasting was to be “forced to go to heaven through kicks and blows.” Burials were called “weddings,” and the dead were celebrated as having “wedded with Jesus.” One witness told the court of a mother who was barred from nursing her newborn baby; the infant died twelve agonising days later. She and other mothers were “instructed to fast to death and follow her children” after which all of the cult’s male members would similarly kill themselves, and last of all, Mackenzie himself. The plan was that the cult’s men would then do the same, with Mackenzie himself the last to die. Only he never did. Stephen Mwiti lost all six of his children in that forest. Holding a photograph of his family outside the court, he said, “I only found and buried the remains of my son Samuel.”
That a man who promised good news twisted God’s word to compel his followers—among them parents with their children—to starve themselves and each other to death is a grievous offence against our Creator and against all those made in his image.
How Do Such Things Happen?
Peter Shukrani joined Mackenzie’s church at eight. In the forest he fell ill, and his mother threw away his medicine “because she believed that only God could heal me.” Yet he insists, “I still love [Mackenzie] and he is still my pastor.” This is what a captured conscience looks like. Daniel Shaw, a psychotherapist and former cult member, observes that victims of “traumatising narcissists” like Mackenzie “will work themselves to exhaustion, starve themselves, and take on shame and self-loathing.”
At Shakahola, starving one’s own child became an act of faith.
How could parents come to believe that starving their children was obedience to God? Cult expert Lorna Goldberg notes that such leaders “create a doctrine that reinforces their destructive attitudes and immorality and redefines these attitudes as virtues.” At Shakahola, starving one’s own child became an act of faith. In a reference to testimony by expert witness Dr Oscar Kivua Githua, Judge Kavedza-Mochache likened Mackenzie’s followers to “devoted actors”—anthropologist Scott Atran’s term describing terrorists and others who are “unconditionally committed to sacred causes” who “willingly make costly sacrifices.”
Shakahola is just part of a long and terrible list of modern cult catastrophes. More than 900 died at Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. Nearly 1000 lost their lives in and around Kanungu, southwestern Uganda, in 2000. At least 53 who killed themselves—allegedly on Mackenzie’s instructions while he was in prison awaiting trial—at Kwa Binzaro, Kenya, in 2025. Jesus warned, “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will recognise them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:15-16a). Many only recognised the fruits of Paul Mackenzie when it was too late.
Our First Response: Lament
We cannot long reflect on this without lament. Before anything else, the Church must grieve. “Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears” (Jeremiah 9:1). Across Kenya, self-styled prophets, apostles and bishops daily exploit the believers in their care—swindling them of their land, savings and homes; abusing them sexually; and leaving many psychologically and spiritually devastated—all in the name of God. “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture” (Jeremiah 23:1).
Hard Lessons for the African Church
The Church is responsible for equipping believers to discern, disciplining them in the true faith. Mackenzie used the Bible. He called digital identity cards “the mark of the devil” (Revelation 13:16-17). He insisted that education was “evil,” healthcare “against the doctrine” Christ gave pastors and teachers “to equip the saints,” so that we are not “tossed to and fro…by every wind of doctrine” (Ephesians 4:12-14). Where the Bible isn’t truly taught, it will be easily twisted.
Where the Bible isn’t truly taught, it will be easily twisted.
How many of Mackenzie’s followers once sat in our own churches, counted but never discipled? Jesus sent us to “make disciples” (Matthew 28:19), not uninformed crowds. Alongside discipling believers the Church is responsible for guarding the faith, which might involves exposing false teachers. For 16 years Mackenzie preached openly across Kenya. How many heard him and said nothing? Paul exposed false teachers who “want to shut you out, that you may make much of them” (Galatians 4:17). That almost perfectly describes Shakahola. They were a people forcibly separated from school, hospital and loved ones so that one man might be made much of.
What the African Church Must Now Do
1. Study the Bible
Mackenzie’s followers carried Bibles that he had never been taught them to read properly. “As you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him” (Colossians 2:6-7). Churches must teach believers to read all of scripture in its proper context and, like the Bereans, to carefully test every preacher by it (Acts 17:11).
2. Learn Essential Christian doctrine
Mackenzie’s followers could quote verses, but they hadn’t been grounded in the faith those verses teach—who God is, who Christ is, and how a sinner is made right with God.
They had no theological defence when he taught that heaven is reached by fasting to death.
Without that foundation they had no defence when he taught that heaven must be reached by fasting to death. Paul charged Timothy, “By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:14). Churches must deliberately teach the core truths of the faith—the Trinity, the full deity and humanity of Christ, salvation by grace alone through faith alone, and the sufficiency of Christ’s finished work—through sound preaching, catechism, and the historic creeds. Believers who know that Christ has reconciled us to God, “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20), will not be persuaded that a child’s starvation is the price of entry into heaven.
3. Know the Cults
Mackenzie’s followers didn’t think they’d joined a cult. They thought they’d found a uniquely special end-time fellowship. “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit” (Colossians 2:8). Learn the warning signs, such as an unquestionable leader who grows rich while his followers grow poor; secrecy; isolation from family, school and medical care. “You will recognise them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). The graves of Kilifi are such fruit.
4. Treasure the True Christ
Mackenzie said children must starve to meet Jesus. But Jesus came to meet us. “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him” (Colossians 2:9-10). Those who are full in Christ need no prophet to bring them closer to God. The false shepherd asks the sheep to die for him; the true shepherd “lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
A Call to the Church in Africa
Stephen Mwiti could only bury Samuel. Across Kenya, mothers and fathers are still waiting to bury theirs. Their grief is a summons to the whole Church in Africa.
Their grief is a summons to the whole Church in Africa.
Jude’s charge hasn’t changed. “Contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3). Every pulpit, every Sunday school and every Christian home must become a place where the truth is taught and defended, error is named and wolves are exposed, whatever title they bear. Yet Jude doesn’t end with combat. “Have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 22-23). Survivors aren’t our enemies. They’re deceived sheep. They need a Church that will receive them patiently and lead them to the true Shepherd for healing, growth, and true life in the body of Christ.
The court has delivered its verdict. Now the Church must respond with humility, clarity, and unbending resolve. We will not be silent, we will not be deceived, and we will not leave the wounded behind.
