The grisly death toll of a “fast unto death” carried out by members of a Kenyan sect in the belief that they will go to heaven has reached 90, with most of the victims being children, police said.

This afternoon the authorities proceeded to exhume the 90th victim and then decided to stop the search in the Sakahola forest, so that the morgue could be cleared first.

The tally is still provisional and the authorities expect the worst: “We don’t know how many mass graves, how many bodies we will find“, said the Minister of Home Affairs, Kiture Kidiki, who today visited the area where the “International Church of Joyful News” was headquartered.

A medical examiner at the scene told reporters that most of the bodies exhumed so far belong to children. According to Hussain Khalid, the executive director of the non-governmental organization Haki, which informed the authorities about the sect’s activities, “50-60% of the victims are children, followed by women and finally men.”

“The horror we have experienced in these four days has shocked us. “Nothing prepares you for the shallow graves where children are buried, side by side, wrapped in a simple cotton cloth,” he added.

The administration of the Malindi city hospital reported this morning that the mortuary is full. Searches will be halted for the next two days until the post-mortem examination of the bodies found so far is completed.

In the forest, 34 believers were found alive, but in a miserable condition.

The minister said that Paul Mackenzie Dhenge, the self-proclaimed “pastor” of the Church who encouraged his followers to starve to meet Jesus, is likely to be prosecuted for “terrorism”.