‘More than 20 bodies’ exhumed in Kenyan starvation cult investigation
More than 20 bodies have been exhumed as part of an investigation into a starvation cult in Kenya, according to reports.
Police began exhuming remains on Friday from more than a dozen suspected graves in the east of the country.
They are thought to contain the remains of followers of a fringe Christian sect who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death.
On Thursday, detectives marked out patches of earth with sticks and yellow tape in Shakahola forest in Kilifi county, according to footage broadcast by Citizen TV.
It’s near the location where police rescued 15 members of the Good News International Church last week.
The alleged leader of the church, Paul Mackenzie, was arrested following a tip-off that also suggested the existence of shallow graves belonging to at least 31 of his followers.
Mackenzie has denied any wrongdoing.
Police said the 15 rescued worshippers had been told to starve themselves to death, so they could meet their creator.
Four of them died before they reached hospital.
Titus Katana, a former member of the church, helped police identify the graves.
“We have shown the graves to the police, and in addition, we have saved the life of a woman who only had a few hours left, otherwise she’d also be dead,” Mr Katana told Citizen TV.
Reports suggest children are among the dead
Matthew Shipeta from Haki Africa, a human rights group, said he had seen at least 15 shallow graves in the forest.
Helen Mikali, the manager of a children’s home who was also helping investigators, said she had visited several nearby villages where parents and children had disappeared.
“Personally, I have visited about 18 children’s graves,” Ms Mikali told Citizen TV. She did not say how she knew the graves contained the remains of children.
Last month, police arrested and later released Mackenzie for encouraging the parents of two boys to starve and suffocate their children to death.
During a court appearance in that case, Mackenzie said he was unaware of the events that led to the deaths of the two boys, claiming he was the target of hostile propaganda from some of his former colleagues, The Kenyan Standard newspaper reported.
The targeted killing of Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al-Sharif and four other colleagues by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) late on Sunday silences more crucial reporting voices from inside Gaza.
The IDF wasted no time in releasing a statement claiming it had “eliminated” Al-Sharif, calling him a “terrorist” who “posed” as a journalist for Al Jazeera.
Gaza latest: Follow live updates
The Committee to Protect Journalists warned in July that Al-Sharif was the victim of an Israeli smear campaign and that they feared for his safety.
The IDF had previously released documents which they say proved his involvement with Hamas.
Gazan journalist Anas Al-Sharif leaves behind a wife and two children
No word from them on his colleagues – Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal and Moamen Aliwa – who they also killed. We are chasing.
Al-Sharif’s death – and that of his four colleagues – is a chilling message to the journalistic community both on the ground and elsewhere ahead of Israel’s impending push into Gaza City.
There will now be fewer journalists left to cover that story, and – if it is even possible – they will be that bit more fearful.
This is how journalists are silenced. Israel knows this full well.
It has also not allowed international journalists independent access to enter Gaza to report on the war.
Al-Sharif’s death has sent shockwaves across the region, where he was a household name. He was prolific on social media and had a huge following.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Read more from Sky News:
Journalists demand access to Gaza
Sky News on Israel’s ‘war on truth’
Reporters issue demand to Israel
I was watching horrifying footage of the immediate aftermath of the strike in the taxi on my way into the bureau, and the driver told me how he and his family had all cried for Anas when the news came in.
His little daughter cried because of Al-Sharif’s little daughter, Sham, who she knew from social media.
“They call everyone Hamas,” my taxi driver said. “Men, women, children”.
Last month, Al-Sharif wrote this post: “I haven’t stopped covering [the crisis] for a moment in 21 months, and today I say it outright… and with indescribable pain.
“I am drowning in hunger, trembling in exhaustion and resisting the fainting that follows me every moment… Gaza is dying. And we die with it.”
This is what journalists in Gaza are facing, every single day.
Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.
He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.
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Rare aerial footage shows scale of destruction in Gaza
This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.
Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.
If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?
Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.
He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.
“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.
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‘We suffer greatly’: Life in Gaza gets harder
I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.
Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.
The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.
“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”
Read more:
Israeli soldier dies by suicide
The danger of aid airdrops revealed
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Gaza: Aid drops ‘killing our children’
This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.
It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.
This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.
World
Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’
Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.
Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.
He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Rare aerial footage shows scale of destruction in Gaza
This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.
Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.
If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?
Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.
He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.
“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
‘We suffer greatly’: Life in Gaza gets harder
I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.
Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.
The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.
“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”
Read more:
Israeli soldier dies by suicide
The danger of aid airdrops revealed
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Gaza: Aid drops ‘killing our children’
This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.
It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.
This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.
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