Four people perished during the rescue effort, according to police, while 15 “radicalised” Kenyan Christians were freed from their fast on Friday after being persuaded they would soon see their creator.
According to authorities, all 15 belonged to the Good News International Church in the seaside county of Kilifi.
Four of the victims passed away while being rescued, according to a police incident report.
The 15 had been radicalised, according to Charles Kamau, the Malindi sub-county’s criminal investigations officer.
“They starved after being radicalised by a certain member of a church who told them that their work in this world was done… and they were waiting to die and see their creator,” he stated on Citizen Television.
Pastors have sometimes been accused of misleading Christian congregants in the past.
According to David Mang’ong’o, the medical superintendent at Malindi sub-district hospital, the malnourished survivors, who were in a serious condition, were brought to a hospital, where the most of them were stabilized.
Police claimed in the report that they were looking into allegations of further casualties.
A church member who was detained last month and then freed in connection with the deaths of two youngsters in the same location was held responsible for the rigorous fasting, according to the accusers.
He was given the name Makenzie Nthenge.
It was unclear right away whether Nthenge had been detained again. No one could reach Nthenge for comment.
According to a police declaration from March 23, the parents of the two boys starved and strangled them on Nthenge’s suggestion.
According to the affidavit, the police requested that the court place Nthenge under arrest because he may be in danger after “having caused many people to lose their lives with the pretence that they were going to heaven if they died of starvation.”
Nthenge claimed at a court hearing in that case that he was not aware of the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the two boys and claimed that some of his former coworkers had used hostile propaganda against him.
On bond, the court gave him a release.
