NAIROBI, April 24 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan President William Ruto on Monday termed deaths involving a religious cult in the coastal town of Kilifi where the police recovered 47 bodies and rescued emaciated persons as terrorism.
Ruto said he had instructed security agencies to get to the root of the matter and take necessary action after the police found victims who starved to death, following a pastor's instructions to fast to go and "meet Jesus."
"What we are seeing in Shakahola in Kilifi is akin to terrorism," said Ruto, adding that Paul Makenzie Nthenge, who pretends and postures as a pastor, is in fact a terrible criminal.
"Terrorists use religion to advance their heinous acts. People like Mackenzie are using religion to do exactly the same thing," he said in Ruiru, about 22 km northeast of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Nthenge, head of the Good News International Church, initially surrendered to police and was charged in March after two children died of starvation while in their parents' care. He was initially freed on a 10,000 shillings (around 74 U.S. dollars) bail.
However, on April 15, police arrested Nthenge after discovering the bodies of four followers whom he allegedly told to starve themselves in order to "meet Jesus."
Police investigations revealed instances of deep-rooted cultism, where individuals exhibit unusual characteristics of being wild, violent and secretive.
"I have instructed the agencies responsible to take up the matter and to get to the root cause and to the bottom of the activities," Ruto said.
He spoke as security agencies continued to dig graves in the Shakahola forest in search of more bodies. So far 47 bodies have been recovered.
The Kenya Red Cross said it had set up tracing and counseling desks at the Malindi Sub-County Hospital for the Shakahola response.
At the tracing desk, 112 people had been reported missing by Sunday as the exercise to exhume more mass graves in what has now become known as the Shakahola massacre, entered its fourth day.
Detectives conducting exhumations on Sunday dug out 26 more bodies buried in shallow graves, pushing the tally of bodies recovered so far to 47, area head of the Directorate Criminal Investigations Charles Kamau said.
Police say they have so far identified 58 graves in the search even as the preacher told them they will find more than 1,000 people who had gone to "meet Jesus."
The latest police actions came after an informer, who was an insider in the church, told authorities of a mass shallow grave with the bodies of 31 victims in an unidentified place in a forest. ■