A prosecution witness in the Shakahola massacre terrorism-related case described how he was forced to aid his one-and-a-half-year-old daughter in fasting to death.
Testifying before Shanzu Senior Principal Magistrate Leah Juma, the protected witness revealed that he initially tried to protect his child.
However, he eventually succumbed to pressure from elders who were enforcing the fast and monitoring the deaths.
These elders were reportedly tasked by Paul Nthege Mackenzie, the prime suspect in the Shakahola massacre, to implement his radical teachings among his followers.
The witness recounted that he had no choice but to deprive his daughter of food and water, leading to her death after 15 days.
He also shared that his wife died after enduring a ten-day starvation period in a makeshift tent where she had relocated.
Over the course of two days—Wednesday and Thursday—the witness provided a harrowing account of how Mackenzie’s radical teachings resulted in the deaths of over 400 people in the vast Shakahola forest.
He explained that many children died between January and February 2023 following Mackenzie’s declaration of a fasting period.
Initially voluntary, the fasting regime was later made mandatory by Mackenzie.
The witness also noted that Mackenzie personally conducted burials for children who succumbed to starvation.
The witness added that he attempted to escape but was deterred by fear of capture and a lack of resources.
After his child’s death, his wife moved to a makeshift tent in compliance with an order requiring fasting followers to retreat deep into the forest to evade police detection.
At that time, police and families were actively searching for missing loved ones.
Following his wife’s death, the witness told the court that he spent his remaining time in the forest transporting bodies from makeshift tents to burial sites and digging graves.
He testified that after transporting these bodies, he began fasting but occasionally broke the fast by consuming honey and water.
The witness made these distressing revelations during his examination-in-chief, conducted by the prosecution team led by Peter Kiprop, Jami Yamina, Anthony Musyoka, Victor Owiti, Betty Rubia, and Peris Ogega.
Another witness, a homicide detective Constable Bernard Jefwa earlier informed Juma how he discovered the victims of the massacre, bound with ropes and wrapped in blankets and white sheets.
According to Jefwa, he exhumed the 429 bodies one at a time from the vast forest before transferring them to the morgue.
“I extracted the bodies from the soil after grave diggers had reached the burial site.
I marked each body and assigned them field names before sealing the body bags and removing them from the graves,” he explained.
He stated that his supervisor, Martin Nyunguto, called him on April 17, 2023, with clear instructions to travel to Kilifi County to take over investigations into the deaths of two minors under unclear circumstances, as well as their burial.
He traveled to Malindi the following day, and on April 19, they entered the forest with a team that included the homicide director, forensic team, crime scene investigators, pathologists, government chemist personnel, public health officers, among others.
“Upon arriving at Shakahola Forest, my colleagues and I encountered individuals sleeping under the sheds and appearing weak.
Later, we conducted searches, rescues, and grave identifications. Some victims appeared sickly and requested water,” he explained.
The witness indicated that they were shown the grave where the two minors were alleged to have been buried.
Later on, he stated that some of the rescued victims were taken to Malindi Sub County Referral Hospital.
“During the process of identifying whether there were more victims, we realized that the area was vast and contained many suspicious graves aside from the one we had come to exhume,” he said.
The aim and objective of the exercise, he noted, shifted to a rescue operation and grave identification by a witness, who was an escapee.
He mentioned that the team was directed to the various grave sites by an escapee.
“A few days later, a male individual who accompanied the investigation team was able to show us where the minors were buried, and indeed we conducted the exhumation and placed the bodies in body bags,” he said.
He stated that during all phases of the exhumation, the pathologist was responsible for coordinating the process and packaging the bodies, while the crime scene officers handled the documentation.
The court adjourned the hearing until September 30, 2024, with further proceedings scheduled from October 1 to October 3, 2024, and October 28 to October 31, 2024.
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