On Sunday, 8 November 2026, the High Court in Mombasa, Kenya, handed down a 200‑year prison sentence to Paul Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International sect, on charges of mass murder of 190 children and one adult.
Prosecutors accused Mackenzie and his sect of ordering members to abstain from food until death, threatening beatings for non‑compliance, causing victims to starve to death. Several bodies were found buried alive in shallow pits in the Shakahola forest.
Mackenzie was first arrested in 2023 after police received reports of forced starvation practices. He had been under surveillance since 2017, when authorities bombed his enterprises, and in 2019 the church he led was shut down, forcing him to relocate to the Shakahola forest.
During the trial, Mackenzie denied the forced‑starvation allegations, stating that he did not order victims to abstain from food. The court rejected his defence and affirmed evidence that sect members were beaten and barred from education and medical services, which he described as a "devil institution".
The case has become one of the deadliest sect disasters in history, shaking the Kenyan public since the discovery of the mass graves in March 2023.
Source: cnnindonesia.com
