Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki is Thursday, May 25 expected in Malindi to oversee the commencement of the second phase of postmortem examinations of 129 additional bodies exhumed from the Shakahola mass graves.
Officials said Kindiki will also visit the public information, tracing and social support centre in the area.
The centre is helping families and friends whose kin are missing or have been identified after exhumation at the forest.
The CS will also talk to the search and rescue operation team that is in the area, officials said.
He will later address the media to give an update on the exhumation and search and rescue mission.
Officials had by May 24 exhumed and recovered 240 bodies from the Shakahola Forest, Kilifi County, on land linked to cult leader Paul Mackenzie.
Mackenzie is being investigated for crimes including aiding suicide, after allegedly convincing members of his Good News International Church to starve themselves to death in order to meet Jesus.
The cult leader and tens of suspects have been arrested amid investigations and a court case to establish what happened in Shakahola.
Coast Regional Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha said 31 suspects are in custody.
Onyancha further reported a total of 91 people have been rescued from starvation so far.
The number of people reported missing stood at 613 as of Thursday.
She also said that 14 victims had been reunited with their families and that the number of DNA samples collected stood at 93.
The exhumation of bodies was suspended to allow an autopsy on 129 recovered so far in the second phase.
Kindiki said only the search for graves and exhumation of the victims of the Shakahola Massacre has been suspended to allow for logistical arrangements for the postmortem examination of the additional 129 bodies recovered in phase two of the exhumation exercise.
He said phase two postmortems will commence on Thursday, May 25, 2023, at the Malindi Sub-County Hospital.
The search for and rescue of survivors within Shakahola Forest and The Chakama Ranch generally will continue uninterrupted and will be extended into the edges of the neighbouring Tsavo East National Park in the coming days using ground and drone search, he added.
“Grave search and exhumation shall resume on conclusion of phase two postmortem exercise,” he said.
One person was Friday rescued from starvation in the forest increasing the number of those rescued to 91 while one more suspect was arrested taking the number of arrests to 32.
Mackenzie is being investigated for crimes including aiding suicide, after allegedly convincing members of his Good News International Church to starve themselves to death in order to meet Jesus.
The cult leader and tens of suspects have been arrested amid investigations and a court case to establish what happened in Shakahola.
A Mombasa court allowed an application by the police to have the Shakahola cult leader Mackenzie and his wife Rhoda Maweu detained for 30 days.
Sixteen other people suspected of working in cahoots with the infamous pastor will also be held for the same period.
Shanzu Principal Magistrate, Yusuf Shikanda ruled that the respondents’ safety and security may be at risk if released on bond.
Police have identified 20 new grave sites which they are working on.
The area has been cordoned off and declared a disturbed.
The government has sent a 30-day cancellation notice to the New Life Church of Pastor Ezekiel Odero and the Good News International ministries of Mackenzie.
The two churches have been under investigation for the Shakahola cult in which now 240 people starved themselves to death so they could go to heaven.
Others, post-mortems revealed, were strangled and suffocated.
They were all buried in mass graves.
Kindiki said the investigation team is closing in on level two and level three perpetrators who aided the cult leader Paul Mackenzie to execute the heinous atrocity.
The entire 50,000-acre Chakama ranch remains a security area and scene of the crime with limited access for all persons who are unauthorised.
Dozens more bodies are believed to be buried in shallow graves therein.
Mackenzie, who is in police custody, is being investigated for influencing his followers to starve to death in order to meet their maker.
Police also suspect that some of the victims did not starve to death and may have been killed and then buried on the property.
He has denied wrongdoing but has been refused bail.
He insists that he shut down his church in 2019.
The followers say he told them to starve themselves in order to “meet Jesus“.
