More than 430 bodies have been recovered since police raided Good News International Church in a forest in Kenya.

Shukran Karisa Mangi always showed up drunk at work, where he dug up the bodies of doomsday cult members buried in shallow graves. But the alcohol couldn’t numb his shock the morning he found the body of a close friend, whose neck had been twisted so severely that his head and torso faced opposite directions.

This violent death upset Mangi, who had already unearthed children’s bodies. The number of bodies kept rising in this community off Kenya’s coastline where extremist evangelical leader Paul Mackenzie is accused of instructing his followers to starve to death for the opportunity to meet Jesus.

In one of the deadliest cult-related massacres ever, at least 436 bodies have been recovered since police raided Good News International Church in a forest some 70 kilometers (40 miles) inland from the coastal town of Malindi. Seventeen months later, many in the area are still shaken by what happened despite repeated warnings about the church’s leader.

  • Tylerdurdon@lemmy.worldEnglish
    45·
    2 months ago

    Oh man, I was thinking this was some historical piece on a cult I hadn’t heard of, but this is happening right now! It’s very sad that people can be so far gone and commit horrendous deeds.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      71·
      2 months ago

      There are tons of these Christian cults around all over the world. People just ignore them because they think Christianity is “one of the good ones”. But they ignore the fact that it has all the same bad things they complain about from other religions and it just takes a leader to emphasize those bad things to convince people those things are “good” because everything in a “good book” from a “good god” must be right and good. It would really help if the people who keep pushing for Bible classes in schools would actually read the whole thing.