Shakahola massacre: Two people arrested as police exhume 17 more bodies, tally rises to 90

Detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) on Tuesday exhumed 17 bodies from shallow graves in Shakahola forest, pushing the death toll from the killer fast to 90 people.

The multi-agency team also rescued three people during the operation which saw two more suspects arrested for taking part in luring followers of controversial pastor Paul Mackenzie and his Good News International Church to starve to death.

The numbers, which keep rising by the day, have occasioned a crisis in the nearby mortuaries which are now filled beyond capacity.

The Malindi sub-county hospital mortuary for instance can preserve only 12 bodies, while that of Kilifi can only preserve a maximum of 48 bodies.

The Kenya Red Cross has made arrangements to have a mobile mortuary that can preserve about 300 bodies since it is believed that hundreds may have died.

In the meantime, the detectives had planned to temporarily stop the exhumation exercise to pave way for the commencement of post-mortem, a proposal that has since been rejected by human rights activists.

The human rights organisations are calling for a change of strategy to ensure that the bodies are well preserved to protect the evidence needed to unearth the mystery behind the deaths.

Malindi Human Rights Centre Manager Victor Kaudo said: “17 bodies were exhumed, but they have to remain here until evening to be transported to mortuaries in Malindi, we think there is a problem with that.

HAKI Africa Executive Director Hussein Khalid, on his part, stated: “The question we’re asking is that, this is a government operation, they have the power, why shouldn’t there be two teams? One to continue to exhume the bodies, while another conducts port-mortem.”

A total of three people were rescued alive bringing the total number of those rescued to 34; the officers also arrested 2 more suspects for luring others to starve to death.

More questions however abound after detectives failed to find bodies of two children believed to have been buried in shallow grave outside the homestead of a former GSU officer who is said to have forced his children to fast to death.

Pastor Mackenzie, who was presented in court on Tuesday, will remain in police custody after Magistrate Ivy Wasike granted the prayers by investigators for more time to continue with the exhumation and post-mortem of the bodies as they piece together evidence to defend their case against him.