The police in Kenya have exhumed no fewer than 21 bodies near the coastal town of Malindi after they opened investigations into the case of a preacher said to have told followers to starve to death.
Exhumations included dead toddlers, and police said they anticipated finding even more bodies.
15 members of the Good News International Church were rescued last week from shallow graves in Shakahola woodland.
Pastor Paul Mackenzie Nthenge is being held in detention pending his court date.
State broadcaster KBC described him as a “cult leader”, and reported that 58 graves have so far been identified.
Mr Mackenzie has denied wrongdoing, but has been refused bail. He insists that he shut down his church in 2019.
He allegedly told followers to starve themselves in order to ‘meet Jesus’.
The Kenyan daily The Standard said pathologists will take DNA samples and conduct tests to determine whether the victims died of starvation.
Africa Today News, New York had last week reported that the Police had arrested Mr Mackenzie on 15 April after discovering the bodies of four people suspected of having starved themselves to death.
Victor Kaudo of the Malindi Social Justice Centre told Citizen TV “when we are in this forest and come to an area where we see a big and tall cross, we know that means more than five people are buried there”.
The preacher allegedly named three villages Nazareth, Bethlehem and Judea and baptised followers in ponds before telling them to fast, The Standard reports.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Kenya is a religious country and there have been previous cases of people being lured into dangerous, unregulated churches or cults.
Many of these religious leaders have often taken advantage of the gullibility of their followers to make them to do their wishes.