Kenyan Starvation Cult Leader Found Guilty of Deaths of 190 Children

A Kenyan court has found Paul Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, and 28 co-accused guilty of murder over the starvation deaths of 190 children and one adult in Shakahola Forest.

Paul Mackenzie, leader of the starvation cult in Kenya's Shakahola Forest, and 28 individuals have been found guilty by a court of the deaths of 190 children and one adult. Prosecutors stated that the Good News International Church established a doomsday cult and ordered its members to starve themselves and their children to death in order to reach heaven before the end of the world.

Cult leader Mackenzie, who was arrested in 2023 following a police tip-off, denied the charges and argued that he did not force the victims to starve, but the court rejected this argument. During the hearing, which lasted more than eight hours, Judge Diana Kavedza Mochache stated that in some cases children were isolated and deprived of food in front of their parents. While a total of more than 400 bodies have been exhumed from Shakahola Forest, it was reported that the defendants' sentences will be announced on November 6.