Malindi cult

GNIM was founded in 2003[18] by Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, as a small church.[19] Before the founding, Mackenzie worked as a taxi driver in Nairobi from 1997 to 2003, during which he was charged four times for his sermons but was acquitted due to lack of evidence.[20] When the church began to prosper, he moved to Migingo Village in Malindi. Mackenzie was able to amass a large following, largely via convincing his congregation that he could personally communicate with God.[21]

In 2016, according to unconfirmed reports, a member of the group sold their property on the island of Lamu to Mackenzie for 20 million KSh and then gave the money to Mackenzie. The preacher allegedly used this money to purchase property in the cities of Mombasa and Malindi as well as two vehicles, and to fund a television station to broadcast his message. This move by certain followers convinced several other members to follow suit, selling their properties and giving money to the church.[21]

In 2017, Mackenzie and his second wife, Joyce Mwikamba (1981–2018)[22], were charged with promoting radicalization, as well as denying children access to health care and education and running an unauthorized school and television station; the latter precipitated the closure of the television station the following year by the Kenya Film Classification Board.[23][24] Several children died as a result of the lack of health care, and in 2017, government authorities rescued 93 children from Mackenzie's church.[8] In 2018, he was criticised by community leaders including the then-Malindi MP, Aisha Jumwa,[25] and other activists[26][27] for inciting children to drop out of school, often without parental consent.[28] Mackenzie was acquitted in one of two criminal cases related to these charges on 29 October 2021, while the other was dropped.[29][30] He is set to have a preliminary hearing on 26 June 2023 in a case that involves incitement to disobedience of the law, being in possession and distributing films to the public which had not been examined and classified by the Kenya Film Classification Board and operating a filming studio and producing films without a valid filming license from the board.[29][31]

In 2019, Mackenzie was arrested for inciting the public against registration for Huduma Namba by likening it to the mark of the beast.[32] He was also accused of brainwashing and abducting children to join his group.[33] Mackenzie was supported during his trial by a number of churches and ministers, including Jesus Christians and other followers of William Branham's teachings.

It was after this incident that he closed his church in Migingo and moved to a remote commune in Shakahola, preceding the mass starvation event in April 2023.[21]

According to the group's website and news media reports, GNIM has been influenced by the End-Time Message of William Branham, an informal global network of churches that emerged from Oneness Pentecostalism.[8][6][34][35] Investigators uncovered booklets of Branham's teachings at the commune which were pictured in a news broadcast.[36][37] Mackenzie's YouTube channel contains videos promoting serpent seed teachings, versions of which are used by white supremacists to oppress non-white races and to prevent racial mixing.[35][38] Although serpent seed is descended from Wesley Swift's Christian Identity theology, not all adherents are aware of its racial origins and still implement the teaching in such a way that it prevents racial mixing and enforces racial segregation.[39][40]

Mackenzie's teachings have been described as placing a profound emphasis on end-time doomsday warnings. Mackenzie's message was also anti-Western, and he railed against such "evils of western life" as medical services, education, food, sports, music, and "the uselessness of life". In a song titled "The Antichrist", he denounced the Catholic Church, the United States, and the United Nations as tools of Satan.[21]

Mackenzie believed that the Kenyan biometric ID system called Huduma Namba was the mark of the beast in alignment with the teachings of Branham. He echoed conspiracy theories to his followers and predicted that the world would end on 15 April 2023.[3][35]

While a majority of the group's adherents have been Kenyans, some were originally from Tanzania, Uganda, and Nigeria.[41]

Shakahola Forest incident

Malindi cult (Kenya) Location of Shakahola
Date	March 2023[42]
Location	Shakahola village, near Malindi, Kenya
Coordinates	3°06′43″S 39°33′07″E
Cause	Mass starvation, suffocation, strangulation, blunt trauma
Motive	Mackenzie's followers were instructed to go without food to "meet Jesus"
Perpetrator	Paul Nthenge Mackenzie
Organized by	Good News International Ministries
Deaths	211
Non-fatal injuries	72
Missing	611
Burial	Shakahola Forest

In the early weeks of April 2023, a man contacted the police after his wife and daughter left Nairobi to join Mackenzie's remote commune in Kilifi County and did not return. When police entered the community to investigate, they discovered emaciated people and shallow graves. Fifteen members of the group were rescued by police; they stated that they had been ordered to starve themselves to death to "meet Jesus". The 15 followers were in poor condition, and four died before they reached a hospital.[43]

Over the following three weeks, police searched the 800-acre (3.2 km²) commune, finding more shallow graves and additional survivors who were starving to death. The first bodies recovered from the graves were mostly children. One of the graves is believed by police to contain the bodies of five members of the same family – three children and their parents. One of the graves had up to six people inside it. Another grave had 12 children in it. Some of the bodies were not buried. Authorities also discovered a number of other emaciated individuals, including one who had been buried alive for three days and was later taken to a hospital for treatment. Local authorities began requesting assistance from other jurisdictions to help with efforts at the commune. Authorities believed that an unknown number of missing people were still hiding in the forest on the commune and evading authorities while continuing to fast. Authorities reported that members of the commune were actively trying to hinder their efforts to find survivors.[3][24][44][45]

According to testimonies to police, Mackenzie told his followers "the fast would count only if they gathered together, and offered them his farm as a fasting venue. They were not to mingle with anyone from the 'outside' world if they wanted to go to heaven and were to destroy all documents given by the government, including national IDs and birth certificates."[46]

133 deaths were reported as of 10 May 2023,[47] including eight who were rescued but later died.[30] The majority of deaths were of children, with women being the next largest group, according to Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki.[48] He additionally stated that not all deaths were by starvation, saying that "there were other methods used, including hurting them, just by physical and preliminary observations."[48] Autopsies conducted on more than 100 bodies showed that the victims died of starvation, strangulation, suffocation and blunt trauma.[49] The Kenyan Red Cross reported on 30 April that 410 individuals, including 227 minors, were missing.[50][51] As of 16 May, the total number of reported deaths was 211,[52][3] and the number of those reported missing reached 611; 84 had been rescued.[53][54]

Mackenzie, his third wife Rhoda Mumbua Maweu and 16 other members of the group were arrested by authorities and are being held in police custody as of 7 May 2023.[55] Mackenzie was denied bail on 10 May. Police plan to charge him with terrorism-related offenses. Twenty-six people have been arrested as of 13 May.[3][49][56]

On 24 April, search teams had to stop digging for bodies until autopsies were completed on the first 90 bodies that were found because the Malindi Sub-County Hospital's morgue was running out of space to store the bodies.[45] On 28 April, it was reported that heavy rain was slowing rescue and recovery efforts.[57]

"Mackenzie brainwashed his converts using William Branham's End of Days Theology, and convinced them that starvation could hasten their escape from this life to be with Jesus," detectives from the homicide unit said.[9]

Police authorities claimed that some of the bodies were missing organs, which "raised suspicions of forced harvesting".[14][15][58] However, on 10 May, Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki refuted these assertions as "politicisation of the probe into the massacre," and advised the public to “treat it [allegedly missing body parts] as rumours. People who have facts are those on the ground not those in offices.”[59][60] As of 8 May, autopsies performed on 112 of the exhumed bodies ruled out the possibility of organ harvesting.[61]

A second pastor, also based in Malindi, was arrested a few days after the Mackenzie starvation incident occurred. Authorities said Ezekiel Odero, pastor of New Life Prayer Centre and Church in Mavueni, Kilifi County, would soon face criminal charges relating to the mass killing of his own followers.[64] Several deaths were recorded at his church between 2022 and 2023, and police believe those bodies may have been moved to Shakahola Forest.[65] Over 103 followers were evacuated from the church premises and will be expected to give statements. Police have not yet confirmed whether the two groups are linked.[64]

• Heaven's Gate, a group that committed mass suicide in 1997 in Rancho Santa Fe, California
• Jonestown, Guyana, site of the 1978 mass murder-suicide by followers of the US-based Peoples Temple cult led by Jim Jones
• Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, an apocalyptic Catholic sect in southwest Uganda
  • 2000 Uganda cult massacres, carried out by the above movement
• Nongqawuse, a South African prophetess whose teachings led to the Xhosa cattle-killing movement and famine (1854–1858)

• William Branham Historical Research
• "Branhamites," by A. Scott Moreau in East Africa Journal of Evangelical Theology