More and more gruesome evidence is coming to light about the case of the “Sakahola massacre” – the death of dozens of believers of the sect of the Good News International Church who fasted to death “to meet Jesus”, as Pastor Paul McKenzie called them – and their bodies placed in mass graves in the Sakahola forest.

A total of 109 bodies, including many children, have so far been found in the Sakahola forest, while the search for other mass graves continues.

New autopsies carried out on about 30 bodies on Tuesday – following 10 carried out on Monday – showed non-starvation deaths and authorities confirmed homicides among the dead.

Of the 40 bodies that were autopsied on Monday and Tuesday, 16 belonged to adults and 18 to children.

Read more: Pastor Paul McKenzie: From taxi driver to leader of the murderous sect “International Church of Joyful News”

“Most of them died of starvation, because in the 20 autopsies we did, we identified characteristics of people who died of starvation,” Johnsen Oduor, officials of Kenya’s forensic service, said on Tuesday night.

However, cases were detected on Monday of children who were brutally murdered and died of suffocation.

“One child had a head injury” that was caused by a blunt object, O’Dower explained.

In another child “his signs were evident strangulation“, as he had “broken bones in his neck,” he added, noting that the medical examiners are “certain that he was strangled.”

Besides, two adults died “from suffocation“, after covering their mouths and noses, he continued. In addition, six bodies were in a state of advanced decomposition, which prevented the medical examiners from determining their ages.

Yesterday the Kenyan judiciary brought charges of “terrorism” against 18 people, among them the pastor of the International Church of Joyful News, Paul Mackenzie.

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Also Ezekiel Odero, one of the most influential pastors in Kenya, is believed to be involved in the case and will appear in court tomorrow Thursday.

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