State releases identified bodies of Shakahola cult victims to families
Coast
By
Marion Kithi
| Oct 28, 2025
State agencies yesterday started to contact the families whose loved ones died in the Shakahola cult to collect bodies from Malindi Sub County Hospital mortuary for burial.
However, some of the families contacted said they were yet to decide whether to collect the bodies or leave them for the planned state mass burial.
Mr Stephen Mwiti confirmed that he received a phone call to inform him that bodies of two of his six children, lost to the Shakahola cult in 2023, had been positively identified.
He said the detectives investigating the cult informed did not however notified him on when to pick the bodies for burial.
"Bodies of my son Samuel Kirimi, 7, and daughter, Hellen Karimi, 9, have been identified. I don't know if others are in the morgue or in graves of Shakahola," said Mwiti.
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He said that he was yet to decide if he will transport the two bodies to his rural home in Meru county for burial or allow the government to bury them inside Shakahola forest.
Mwiti said that his wife Bahati Juan believed controversial pastor Paul Makenzi's teaching that the world was to end in August last year.
"She was an ardent follower of Makenzi. She first went into Shakahola in 2021, and then kept coming and going until 2021 when she relocated permanently," he said.
Yesterday, other families of the victims whose loved ones are yet to be identified said it has been painful and endless grief to wait for the state to release bodies for burial.
Justus Franks Mokaya from Nyamira county who lost 11 family members says they are yet to be contacted on the status of his relatives.
"Me and my mother gave out our DNA samples in 2023.However we have not been contacted yet on the status of the results," he said.
The release of the bodies discovered in mass graves in the Shakahola forest in 2023, connected to a religious cult, started after some bodies were identified by the DNA.
Sources said that at least 37 of the hundreds of bodies discovered in mass graves in the Shakahola forest are set to be released to their families this week for burial.
The affected families would first be taken through psychological counseling before the bodies of their loved ones are handed over to them.
Earlier, Coast region commissioner Rhoda Onyancha said detectives will embark on round two of exhumation at Kwa Binzaro after they handover the 37 bodies.
Onyancha said that the process has been slowed because people are not coming to claim their loved ones.
She urged people who suspect family members to be among the victims to come forward. At Shakahola, 453 people died because of the activities of the cult.
Autopsies revealed that victims have been strangled, beaten or suffocated. Last year, the government handed out 34 bodies positively identified to families.
The unidentified degraded bodies are stored in black bags with handwritten cards identify each victim of the cult are stored inside two container mobile ambulances stationed outside the Malindi Sub-County Hospital.
Officers from the government Chemist are still taking DNA samples from families who visit their officers. [Marion Kithi]