Controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie chose Shakahola Forest to advance his activities due to its remoteness and seclusion, a report tabled in the Senate says.
The report by the 11-member team chaired by Tana River Senator Danson Mungatana says the villages in Shakahola forest were located 16 kilometers away from the nearest village.
“Once inside the villages established by Mackenzie, followers were not allowed to leave the area, nor interact within themselves,” the report says.
“Additionally, the followers were required to destroy vital documents among them national identity cards, birth certificates, certificates of title to property, academic certificates and marriage certificates.”
The Kilifi County Security Committee in their submissions noted that once the national identification documents were destroyed, the followers acquired new names upon joining the Shakahola community.
This, they said, created problems during the identification of survivors who denied their previous identities.
It was after handing over their possessions to the church leadership and assuming new identities that the converts were subjected to fasting in specific villages.
In addition to starvation of followers, lactating mothers were not allowed to breastfeed their young ones, the report says.
According to the report, submissions from the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) said there was an intense recruitment of followers over the Covid-19 period in 2020.
Following Mackenzie’s call, the followers were supposed to fast in readiness for the end of the world, string with the children, women then men in that order before Mackenzie himself would finally ascend to heaven from the centre of Malindi.
The committee during their fact-finding mission to Kilifi was informed by local civil society and non-governmental organisations that Mackenzie had an enforcement/vigilante group guarding the forest against outside infiltration whom he used to enforce his directives.
“In particular, two motorcycles (boda bodas) were torched by the vigilantes during an attempt to infiltrate the forest. The matter was reported at Lango Baya Police Station,” the report says.
According to the report, certain areas inside the forest were named after biblical cities.
For instance, strong cult members were taken to a city called Sidon. Other villages were named Jericho, Bethlehem, Babylon among others.
The armed militia which had both men and women was referred to as “enforcers” and they would dig shallow graves where they buried those who had succumbed to starvation.
“Those who defied the directive to fast or attempted to escape were either strangled or clobbered to death by the “enforcers”,” the report shows.
Those who were lucky to escape alive were rescued by Orma herders and neighbouring communities.
