According to the authorities, grieving family members emerged sobbing from a hospital mortuary in Kenya on Tuesday after retrieving the bodies of loved ones who had been forced to starve themselves by a doomsday cult leader.

In one of the worst cult-related tragedies in recent memory, the bodies of over 400 members of the Good News International Church have been dug up from the Shakahola forest in southeast Kenya since April 2023.

Paul Mackenzie, the leader of the cult, turned himself into the police in April of last year and is one of 29 people charged with murder. No one has entered a guilty plea. Mackenzie is charged with informing his followers that the world was about to end and that they needed to commit suicide to be the first people to enter paradise.


The agony of hundreds of families waiting to bury their loved ones is exacerbated by the fact that only 35 bodies have been positively identified to date.

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At a hospital mortuary in the town of Malindi on Tuesday, a small number of bodies were the first to be given to families. Before being allowed inside, relatives waited in a single file. Tears welled up from several of them.

"They asked us to bring a hearse but we have no means to transport the remains of our brother," he said as he waited in the shade of a tree outside the mortuary.

A portion of the corpses were removed on gurneys and placed in car trunks. TV camera operators and reporters were kept well away.

According to government officials, the post-mortem, identification, and exhumation processes were causing delays in the bodies' transfer. Some severely damaged remains have been identified through DNA testing.


Roseline Odede, the chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, which is funded by the state, stated that the procedure should be expedited.

"Going at this rate, we are going to be here for 10 years, trying to identify the 390 plus bodies," she stated to reporters.

"I think the government must intentionally commit resources towards this process so that we are able to give closure to families."