The Shakahola Forest Massacre: How Paul Mackenzie Led Parents to Starve Their Children

How did a church in Malindi end in a forest grave?

Picture a mother in a Kenyan coastal town in 2018. Her pastor is on television every week. He says the end is near, that the world is evil, that schools teach children the ways of Satan and that hospitals are against the faith. She loves her children and wants them in heaven. When he says the church is moving to the wilderness, she goes.

That is roughly the path the record describes. Mackenzie established Good News International Ministries in 2003, and over the next 16 years it drew thousands of followers in branches across Kenya, the BBC reported on 19 October 2026. The High Court's summary, published by Kenya Law, says the church was registered in 2010 and broadcast his sermons on Times TV and YouTube. He taught that formal education, medical treatment and government programmes, including the Huduma Number digital identity scheme, were satanic. The BBC describes his "End Days" sermons calling education "evil", health care "against the doctrine" and digital identity cards "the mark of the devil".

The authorities knew his name long before the graves. The Guardian reports that police searched his premises in 2017, and that in 2019 the authorities shut down his church. After it closed, the judgment summary says, he told followers that the church was moving to the wilderness, and they settled in Shakahola. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights told a Senate committee that recruitment intensified during the Covid-19 period in 2020, according to The Star's report on the committee's findings, published 20 October 2023.

If you want the Catholic reading of the mark of the beast that Mackenzie turned into a reason to fear an identity card, our guide to the mark of the beast sets it out.

What happened inside the forest?

The court's findings are hard to read. They are set down here because the people who died deserve to have the truth told plainly.

According to the judgment summary, Mackenzie directed followers to fast to death so that they could meet Jesus. Children were to fast first, then the youth, then women, then men, and finally Mackenzie and his family. Guards, "fasting enforcers", cooks and gravediggers kept the regime running. Those who resisted or tried to escape were beaten, tied up or locked in houses. The court recorded his own words that followers would reach heaven by force, "kwa mangumi na mateke": with blows and kicks.

The Senate ad hoc committee, chaired by Tana River Senator Danson Mungatana, tabled its report in October 2023. As reported by The Star on 20 October 2023, it found that followers were not allowed to leave and were required to destroy national identity cards, birth certificates, title deeds, academic certificates and marriage certificates. Villages were named after biblical places such as Jericho, Bethlehem and Babylon. Lactating mothers were not allowed to breastfeed. In her judgment, Justice Mochache said burials in the forest were called "weddings", and that those who died "were celebrated as having wedded with Jesus" (BBC, 19 October 2026).

The killing came to light in mid-March 2023, when a local man told police that relatives had starved their children in the forest on Mackenzie's orders (The Guardian). Mackenzie was arrested and released on bail; relatives say he then brought forward the date on which he told followers the world would end. Police arrested him again in April 2023 and began exhuming mass graves. Post-mortem results showed that most of the victims died of starvation, while others died from suffocation, strangulation or head injuries (BBC, 8 November 2026).

What did the court find?

The trial was Republic v Mackenzie alias Mtumishi and 30 others, Criminal Case E003 of 2024. Thirty-one people were charged with 191 counts of murder covering 190 children and one adult. Two of the accused died before judgment, and one confessed and pleaded guilty, according to Kenya Law. On 19 October 2026, in an eight-hour judgment, Justice Diana Kavedza Mochache convicted Mackenzie and 28 others.

The defence argued that the victims had fasted of their own free will. The court rejected that argument point by point. Newborns and toddlers could not consent to anything. Children of about six to ten could not grasp that death was permanent. Older children tried to escape, stole food and drank water, and were punished for it. Food and water were available at the settlement, and the court found that the children had been deliberately starved. Citing Kenya's Children Act and Constitution, the court held that religious freedom gives no adult the power to decide that a child should die.

On 6 November 2026 the court passed sentence: 100 years for homicide and 100 years for offences related to starvation, to run one after the other, for a total of 200 years (BBC). Prosecutors had sought the death penalty. Justice Mochache declined, saying capital punishment would end any prospect of rehabilitation. "The sentence is appropriate and just, to send an unmistakable message that such atrocities warrant the maximum penalties allowed by law," she said. The co-accused received sentences of up to 160 years.

Where did the money and the land fit in?

Shakahola was not a fundraising scheme in the way a television healing campaign is. It was a system of total control, and control of property was part of it. The Senate committee reported that followers handed their possessions to the church leadership and destroyed their title deeds and other documents before they were made to fast (The Star, 20 October 2023).

The committee recommended that the Director of Criminal Investigations look into the cash flows, assets and foreign links of Good News International Ministries and of Good News Media (K) Limited, and that Mackenzie's assets be frozen so that the proceeds could compensate the families of the dead. It also recommended that both entities be declared organised criminal groups and deregistered.

Who owned the land is less clear than the headlines suggest. Before the same committee in July 2023, the Principal Secretary for Lands, Nixon Korir, said the ministry had no record of any lease to Mackenzie and no evidence for claims that he owned acres there, and that the forest lay within the Chakama Ranch (Citizen Digital, 10 July 2023). The honest summary is that the record proves the control he held over his followers' lives and property, and the courts have not yet ruled on where the money went.

What does Paul Mackenzie say?

Mackenzie pleaded not guilty. He and his co-accused repeatedly insisted that nobody was forced to die, the BBC reports, and his defence maintained that the victims fasted voluntarily as an exercise of their faith. Before sentencing, Mackenzie and the co-accused asked the court for leniency. The court rejected the voluntary-fasting defence and found that the deaths arose from an organised system of teachings and directives.

Some survivors still defend him. A 23-year-old man rescued from the forest, who says his mother threw away the medicine he needed, told the BBC before the verdict that Mackenzie "didn't force anyone to fast" and that "I still love him and he is still my pastor." That loyalty is part of the tragedy. It shows how completely a single voice can take the place of conscience, family and the wider Church.

What is proven, what is alleged, and what is unknown?

• Proven in court: Mackenzie and 28 others murdered 191 people, 190 of them children, by starvation and direct violence. Mackenzie was sentenced to 200 years on 6 November 2026.
• Found by public inquiry: the Senate committee's findings on isolation, destroyed documents and enforcers, and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights' finding that local officials repeatedly turned a blind eye (BBC, 8 November 2026).
• Alleged and pending: the terrorism and manslaughter charges, and the Kwa Binzaro deaths that prosecutors say he directed from detention. He denies them.
• Unknown: the identities of most of the dead, and the full count. The convictions cover 191 of the 429 bodies exhumed, and The Guardian reported that only 26 had been identified.

Red flags you can check yourself

• One man is the only voice of God. The judge said Mackenzie's followers believed he was "Jesus's mouthpiece". In the Church, no single preacher stands above Scripture, the sacraments and the bishops in communion with the Pope.
• The end has a date, and the date moves. Relatives say Mackenzie brought his date forward after his first arrest. Jesus said no one knows the day or the hour (Mark 13:32).
• You are told to cut yourself off. Move away, stop school, stop seeing the doctor, stop talking to family who doubt. Isolation is how control is built.
• You are asked to destroy your documents or hand over your property. Identity papers and title deeds are what let you leave.
• Children carry the adults' vows. Any teaching that puts a fast, a vow or a risk on a child who cannot choose for themselves is a lie about God.
• Medicine is called a lack of faith. The Church prays for the sick and sends them to the doctor.
• There are enforcers. Real faith is freely given. If someone guards the exit, leave and call the police.

What does the Catholic Church teach about fasting and the end?

The Church does fast, and it fasts with limits. The precept of fasting and abstinence exists to help us "acquire mastery over our instincts and freedom of heart" (Catechism 2043). Church law binds only adults to fast, from the age of majority until the beginning of the sixtieth year, and abstinence from meat begins at fourteen (Code of Canon Law, canon 1252). No law of the Church has ever asked a child to fast, let alone to fast to death.

Life is not ours to throw away. "We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us," the Catechism says (2280), and "Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them" (2288). Jesus said, "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them" (Mark 10:14). He laid his hands on them and blessed them. He never asked a parent to lay a child in the ground to reach him.

On the end of the world, the Catechism warns that before Christ's return the Church will face "a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth" (675). A preacher who promises heaven by a shortcut and names the day is the kind of voice that warning has in mind. The Christian answer is readiness every day, in prayer and charity, while we keep our children fed and in school. Our end times guide sets out what the Church actually teaches, and the end times beliefs quiz lets you check your own picture of the end against the Catechism.

Shakahola is the worst of a pattern this site has documented elsewhere. Read how end-times fear was sold on television in the Jim Bakker case, and how the Church judged the dated messages of Maria Divine Mercy.

What should you do if someone you love is in a group like this?

1. Keep the door open. Stay in touch without arguing every point. People leave when they have somewhere to go.
2. Watch for the children. If children are being kept from food, school or medical care, report it to the police or child protection services at once. In Kenya, a grandfather's report to police in March 2023 helped save his grandson (BBC, 8 November 2026).
3. Talk to your parish. A priest has seen this kind of control before and can help you plan.
4. Pray, and act. Prayer is never a reason to wait when a life is in danger.

Sources

• Kenya Law (National Council for Law Reporting), "High Court convicts Paul Mackenzie and 28 others of the murder of 191 people at Shakahola", case summary of Republic v Mackenzie alias Mtumishi and 30 others, [2026] KEHC 16478 (KLR), judgment of 19 October 2026, published 5 November 2026. kenyalaw.org
• BBC News, "Kenya cult leader who told parents to starve children guilty of 191 murders", by Thomas Mukhwana, 19 October 2026. bbc.com
• BBC News, "Kenyan doomsday cult leader given life sentence for murdering 191 people", by Basillioh Rukanga and Wycliffe Muia, 8 November 2026 (reporting the 6 November sentence). bbc.com
• The Guardian, "Kenyan starvation cult leader guilty of murder of 190 children and one adult", 19 October 2026. theguardian.com
• Al Jazeera and Reuters, "Kenyan court sentences starvation cult leader to 200 years", 6 November 2026. aljazeera.com
• The Star (Kenya), "Why Mackenzie chose Shakahola Forest: Senate report", 20 October 2023, and "Freeze Mackenzie assets, compensate victims' families: Senators", 20 October 2023. the-star.co.ke
• Citizen Digital, "No gov't records to show Mackenzie owns Shakahola land, PS Korir tells Senate", by Vincent Afande, 10 July 2023. citizen.digital
• Code of Canon Law, canon 1252, and Catechism of the Catholic Church 675, 2043, 2280 and 2288, on vatican.va. vatican.va

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