The Senate Ad Hoc Committee probing the Shakahola deaths will be visiting Nyanza and Western regions as part of the efforts to unravel the mysteries surrounding the cult.
Tana River Senator Danson Mungatana who is leading the committee on Monday said a lot of questions continue to linger adding that the majority of the victims had been recruited from as far as Western.
“Our people have suffered, people have died and these people believed they were going to church so there is a failure there because where they thought there was refuge there wasn’t,” he said.
“We are going to go all the way to Western Kenya, we are going to Kisumu because a lot of those people were not locals, they were coming from Vihiga and Kisumu and that also is something to ask ourselves why they were not recruiting the locals,” he added.
According to the senator, the decision to recruit people from far flung counties was to avoid any suspicion since local people could easily be reported as missing.
He said the committee will then make very strong recommendations about how the system should handle the matter noting that they will listen to the views of everyone to avoid falling into the trap of being dictatorial.
“Some questions remain unanswered because how do you explain the fact that someone has been saved from the forest and they are still saying they want to go back to finish their transition to see Jesus?” he paused.
This is even as the team conducting the exhumation of bodies believed to be of the followers of controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie resumed the exercise on Monday after two days break.
The exhumation being conducted by a team of Detectives from the Homicide unit, DCI, Pathologists and Government chemists among others seeks to ensure all those who were buried in the forest are exhumed.
So far, the number of bodies exhumed has reached 274 as detectives continue with the process in the 840-acre Shakahola land.
