Officials Friday, May 12 exhumed 29 more bodies from the Shakahola forest, Kilifi County increasing the death toll to 179.
There are fears of finding more bodies at the mass graves within the forest.
Coast Regional Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha confirmed the figures and said a total of 609 people have been reported missing.
A total of 25 people have been arrested while 72 others have been rescued.
Onyancha further said 14 people had been reunited with their families and 93 samples from relatives had been collected for DNA analysis.
She said the rescue and exhumation exercises were still ongoing to ensure everyone is rescued and all bodies buried in the forest are recovered.
On Thursday, a Mombasa court allowed an application by the police to have the Shakahola cult leader Paul 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.
Top police commanders flew to the site amid reports of finding more cult-like churches in the region.
Deputy Inspector General of Kenya Police Douglas Kanja and Director of Criminal Investigations Mohamed Amin who arrived in the region on Thursday will oversee a planned operation on new cult centres that have been discovered.
Police have identified 20 new grave sites which they are working on.
Witnesses said the two rescued were fasting and praying in a thicket when the security teams arrived.
It shows they have been without food for more than two weeks now since when the area was cordoned off and declared a disturbed area.
The government has sent a 30-day cancellation notice to the New Life Church of Pastor Ezekiel Odero and Good News International ministries of Paul Mackenzie, Registrar of Societies Jane Joram has told the Senate Ad hoc committee investigating the Shakahola deaths.
The two churches have been under investigation for the Shakahola cult in which more than 100 people starved themselves so they could go to heaven.
Others, post-mortems revealed, were strangled and suffocated.
They were all buried in mass graves.
There are 40,000 registered religious organizations in Kenya, she said.
The second phase of the exhumation exercise started Tuesday with Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki presiding over the process, which he described as a legal, medical, and human rights exercise that must be undertaken methodically and carefully to protect the dignity and privacy of families of the deceased persons.
“The Government will avail all information on the ongoing exercise, and limited access to the exhumation sites is to ensure that there is no violation of fundamental rights,” he said.
Kindiki said 25 people have so far been arrested, and 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 unauthorized.
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”.
