{"id":50064,"date":"2026-11-05T12:48:51","date_gmt":"2026-11-05T10:48:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=50064"},"modified":"2026-11-05T12:48:51","modified_gmt":"2026-11-05T10:48:51","slug":"kenyan-father-haunted-by-childrens-deaths-ahead-of-starvation-cult-leaders-sentencing","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/kenyan-father-haunted-by-childrens-deaths-ahead-of-starvation-cult-leaders-sentencing\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenyan father haunted by children&#8217;s deaths ahead of starvation cult leader&#8217;s sentencing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>When Kenyan starvation cult leader Paul Mackenzie is sentenced on Friday for \u200cthe murders of 190 children and an adult, Stephen Mwiti and other relatives of the victims will be worrying he may continue spreading his deadly messages.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mwiti says all six of his children died in the Shakahola Forest, where his wife took them in 2022. \u200b<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Prosecutors said Mackenzie ordered followers to starve themselves and their children to death to go to heaven \u200bbefore the world ended, in what became one of the worst cult-related tragedies in recent \u2060history.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mwiti said he hoped that Mackenzie and his fellow defendants, who include Mwiti&#8217;s wife, would be held in solitary \u200bconfinement if they were jailed, so they could not influence other prisoners.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Even if he were to be hanged, I \u200bwill never see my children again,&#8221; Mwiti, 48, told\u00a0<em><span class=\"x_spanWithBackgroundColor\">Reuters<\/span><\/em>\u00a0this week while visiting his son Samuel&#8217;s grave in the coastal city of Malindi.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Samuel, who was around seven years old when they entered the forest, was the only one of Mwiti&#8217;s children whose remains \u200bcould be identified. Many of the victims&#8217; bodies were severely decomposed, with officials only able to confirm the identities \u200bof 26 of the more than 400 bodies recovered from the forest.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Mackenzie and 28 co-defendants \u200cwere convicted \u2060last month of murder. They could face the death penalty, although Kenya has not executed anyone in decades.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Most of the defendants, including Mwiti&#8217;s wife, denied the charges and Mackenzie said he did not force anyone to starve, an argument that Mwiti said made no sense.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Assuming the adults he had converted agreed to fast without being forced, what about the \u200bchildren? The post mortem even \u200brevealed that Samuel died \u2060after being strangled. Was that also by will?&#8221; Mwiti said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>After Mackenzie was arrested, officials said his followers continued to promote his ideas.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Last year, authorities discovered dozens more bodies in \u200ba nearby village, which they linked to Mackenzie&#8217;s cult.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16035,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-50064","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Kenyan starvation cult leader Paul Mackenzie is sentenced","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50066,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/50064\/revisions\/50066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=50064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}