The Shakahola massacre trial resumed for a third consecutive day at the Mombasa Law Courts today, with harrowing testimony from families who lost loved ones to the Good News International Church cult led by controversial preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie.
One of the witnesses, Mr. Sephania Otieno Ogunda, recounted how his daughter, Bella Faith Otieno, sold her property before abandoning her family home to join Mackenzie’s church in Kilifi.
Bella, together with her two daughters namely Liza Agatha, 17, and Joy Ouma, 7, later died of starvation in the Shakahola forest. Mr. Ogunda told court his daughter sent him a sealed envelope through a former church member.
Inside was a written agreement directing him to sell a piece of land and keep the proceeds for her. “When I called her to ask why, she said she wanted to use the money to spread the word of God because the world was coming to an end,” he testified.
He said he later traced his daughter’s whereabouts after a woman who had escaped from the cult informed him that Bella and her children had remained behind in the forest. From the accounts of survivors, he concluded that his daughter and grandchildren succumbed to starvation.
Another witness, Mr. Ernest Vedasto Mwombeki, a Tanzanian national, gave a similarly emotional account. He told the court that his wife, Judith Assery Mwandary one of Mackenzie’s co-accused, had taken their three children to Kenya after becoming deeply engrossed in the preacher’s apocalyptic sermons aired on Times TV.
The children Nikson Kaijuge, 10, Victor Kamugisha, 7, and Rwegasira Ernest, 2, all died in the Shakahola forest. Mr. Vedasto said his wife were arrested in Nairobi for withdrawing their children from school, in line with Mackenzie’s teachings that discouraged education and medical treatment.
She was handed a non-custodial sentence, reunited with her family in Tanzania, but later disappeared again, this time crossing into Kenya with the children. He later found her among survivors rescued from Shakahola, weak from starvation.
She informed him that their children had left with another woman. DNA analysis subsequently confirmed that one of the bodies recovered from the forest was that of his eldest son, Nikson. “Losing my children in such a manner is painful and difficult to explain,” he told court.
The hearing continues on Thursday, when prosecution witness Chief Inspector Joseph Kolum is expected to testify on mobile phone communication between Mackenzie and his followers.
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