Kenya will convert a vast coastal forest where the bodies of more than 250 people linked to a doomsday cult have been exhumed into a national memorial site. The discovery of mass graves in Shakahola forest, a 325-hectare bushland that lies inland from the Indian Ocean town of Malindi, has shocked Kenyans. Cult leader Paul Nthenge Mackenzie is facing various charges in the grisly case, accused of driving his followers to death by preaching that starvation was the only path to God. The forest “where grave crimes have been committed will not remain as it was,” Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said. “The government will convert it into a national memorial, a place of remembrance so that Kenyans and the world do not forget what happened here,” he said in a statement. Investigators began a third phase of exhumation on Tuesday, unearthing nine more bodies to take the death toll to 251. Kindiki said the cult’s activities extended beyond Shakahola forest and that “comprehensive, methodical, and scientific” investigations had extended to a ranch in the area stretching over more than 14,980 hectares.
SOURCE: AFRICA NEWS