Second Kenyan pastor arrested over alleged 'mass killings', says minister

[April 27, 2023]  NAIROBI (Reuters) - The head of a church in eastern Kenya has been arrested in relation to "mass killings" and 100 of his followers have been evacuated from church premises, Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki said on Thursday.

Volunteers assist forensic experts and homicide detectives from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), to exhume bodies of suspected followers of a Christian cult named as Good News International Church, whose members believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death, in Shakahola forest of Kilifi county, Kenya April 25, 2023. REUTERS/Joseph Okanga

The arrest and evacuation were related to a separate organisation from the cult that has been under investigation in eastern Kenya in recent days after mass graves were found in the forest where it was based.

(Reporting by George Obulutsa; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by James Macharia Chege)

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