- Courts have to authorise the disposal of such bodies in a mass grave.
- Government pathologist promised the results of the first DNA sequences will be released early next month.
Image: COLLINS APUDO
Some victims of cultist Paul Makenzie have been rejected by their families even in death.
Chief government pathologist Johansen Oduor said this has been the biggest hurdle in identifying remains of some people who starved themselves to death.
He said relatives of some of the victims of Good News International Church starvation camp in Shakahola completely refused to give DNA samples for matching.
“Some of them came and gave their samples but some refused because they were telling us the person went to Mackenzie hence they don’t want anything to do with them. They don’t even want those bodies buried in their homes,” he said.
Oduor, who spoke at the ongoing Kenya Medical Research Institute Annual Scientific and Health Conference in Nairobi, said bodies without matches could be buried in mass graves.
Courts have to authorise the disposal of such bodies in a mass grave.
"They (relatives) said they are not going to be involved and what does that mean, we will not be able to identify some of these people and so we resort to the mass grave, that is what will happen,” Oduor said.
Pathologists have so far conducted 429 autopsies, 52 per cent of them female and 42 per cent of the total being children.
Oduor admitted the DNA profiling has taken long since samples were collected last year.
“In some bodies, the flesh was completely rotten so you had to drill the bones to extract samples,” he said.
He promised the results of the first DNA sequences will be released early next month.
DNA contains vital information that gets passed on to each successive generation. All close relatives share at least some DNA with each other. However, the more distant the family relationship, the fewer genes people have in common.
This is why pathologists needed close relatives to get proper matches.
The controversial cult leader Mackenzie and 29 others were charged on February 6, with the murder of 191 children whose bodies were exhumed from Shakahola forest.
They all denied the charges before the Malindi High Court judge, Justice Mugure Thande.
In a 298-page charge sheet, the DPP said Mackenzie and his co-accused jointly murdered at least 191 children.
The 11 children out of the 191, whose identity has so far been revealed are Seth Hinzano Ngala, Evabra Dito Ngala, Sifa Edison, Nathan Mathu, Neema Robert, Joyce Amani, Stacy Hadama, Elna Mpa, Ejah Nyaleso, Sara Peter, and Patience Kahindi.
The court was told that the children were killed between January 2021 and September 2023.
DCI officers said it is reasonably suspected that Mackenzie and the co-accused were directly responsible for the mass deaths of children and unlawful burials in Shakahola.
The charges came after Interior CS Kithure Kindiki declared Mackenzie’s church an organised criminal group.
The CS said in a public notice that he relied on section 22(1) of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act, 2010 to declare the religious outfit a criminal group and this automatically outlaws it.
"In exercise of the powers conferred by section 22 (1) of the Prevention of Organized Crimes Act, the Cabinet Secretary for Interior and National Administration declares Good News International Ministries to be an organised criminal group for the purpose of the Act,” the notice read.