24, April 2023
Kenya: President Ruto vows action after 51 bodies linked to cult found 0
Kenyan President William Ruto on Monday vowed to crack down on “unacceptable” religious movements after police discovered the bodies of 51 people suspected of belonging to a Christian cult that practised starvation.
A major search is underway in a forest near the coastal town of Malindi where dozens of corpses were exhumed over the weekend, with authorities fearing more grisly discoveries could be made.
A full-scale investigation has been launched into the Good News International Church and its leader, named in court documents as Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, who preached that death by starvation delivered followers to God.
It is believed some of his devotees could still be hiding in the bush around Shakahola where the first bodies were discovered in shallow graves last week.
A 325-hectare (800-acre) area of woodland has been declared a crime scene as authorities seek to understand the true scale of what is being dubbed the “Shakahola Forest Massacre.”
Ruto, speaking in speaking in Kiambu county neighbouring Nairobi, said there was “no difference” between rogue pastors like Nthenge — who has been arrested and is awaiting trial — and terrorists.
State of survival: without water or food
“Terrorists use religion to advance their heinous acts. People like Mr Mackenzie are using religion to do exactly the same thing.”
“I have instructed the agencies responsible to take up the matter and to get to the root cause and to the bottom of the activities of… people who want to use religion to advance weird, unacceptable ideology.”
Police chief Japhet Koome was expected on Monday to visit the site, where teams clad in overalls have been scouring for more burial pits and possible cult survivors.
Fears for followers
There are fears some members could be hiding from authorities in the surrounding bushland and at risk of death if not quickly found.
A number of people have already been rescued and taken to hospital in Malindi, on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast.
Hussein Khalid, a member of the rights group Haki Africa that tipped off the police to the actions of the church, said one of those rescued had refused to eat despite being in clear physical distress.
“The moment she was brought here, she absolutely refused to be administered with first aid and she closed her mouth firmly, basically refusing to be assisted, wanting to continue with her fasting until she dies,” he told AFP.
The Kenya Red Cross said 112 people had been reported missing to its support staff at Malindi.
Nthenge turned himself in to police and was charged last month, according to local media, after two children starved to death in the custody of their parents.
He has since been released on bail of 100,000 Kenyan shillings ($700). The case is due to be heard again on May 2.
The case has grabbed the national attention, prompting the government to flag the need for tighter control of fringe denominations in a country with a history of self-declared pastors and movements that become immersed in crime.
Interior Minister Kithure Kindiki, who has announced he would visit the site on Tuesday, described the case as “the clearest abuse of the constitutionally enshrined human right to freedom of worship.”
But attempts to regulate religion in the majority-Christian country have been fiercely opposed in the past as attempts to undermine constitutional guarantees for a division between church and state.
Source: AFP
25, April 2023
US says Sudan warring parties agree to 72-hour ceasefire after hundreds killed 0
Sudan’s battling generals have agreed to a three-day ceasefire, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday, after 10 days of urban combat killed hundreds, wounded thousands, and sparked a mass exodus of foreigners.
Previous bids to pause the conflict failed to take hold but Blinken announced: “Following intense negotiation over the past 48 hours, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have agreed to implement a nationwide ceasefire starting at midnight on April 24, to last for 72 hours.”
Blinken’s statement came two hours before the truce was to take effect.
It came after the UN chief warned Sudan is on “the edge of the abyss” following fighting between the rivals who have waged unprecedented battles in the capital, Khartoum, as well as elsewhere in the country.
The fighting pits forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against those of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militia that then-president Omar al-Bashir unleashed in Darfur, leading to war crimes charges against Bashir and others.
The Forces of Freedom and Change, the main civilian bloc which the two generals ousted from power in a 2021 coup, said the truce would allow for “dialogue on the modalities of a permanent ceasefire.”
At least 427 people have been killed and more than 3,700 wounded, according to UN agencies.
Among the latest to die was the assistant administrative attache at Cairo’s embassy in Khartoum, Egypt’s foreign ministry said. The official was killed while heading from home to the embassy to follow up on evacuation procedures, it said.
More than 4,000 people have fled the country in foreign-organised evacuations that began on Saturday.
The United States and multiple European, Middle Eastern, African and Asian nations launched emergency missions to bring to safety their embassy staff and Sudan-based citizens by road, air and sea.
But millions of Sudanese are unable to flee.
They are trying to survive acute shortages of water, food, medicines and fuel as well as power and internet blackouts.
UN agencies reported some Sudanese civilians were able to escape “areas affected by fighting, including to Chad, Egypt and South Sudan”.
“Morgues are full. Corpses litter the streets” said Attiya Abdallah, head of the doctors’ union, which on Monday reported scores more casualties after sites in south Khartoum were “heavily shelled”.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that the violence in Sudan — already one of the world’s poorest countries, with a history of military coups — “could engulf the whole region and beyond”.
“We must all do everything within our power to pull Sudan back from the edge of the abyss,” Guterres said.
He had also, again, called for a ceasefire.
Britain requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting on Sudan, which was expected to take place on Tuesday, according to a diplomat.
A UN convoy carrying 700 people completed an arduous 850 kilometre (530 mile) road trip to Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast from the capital, where they left behind gunfire and explosions.
The United Nations head of mission Volker Perthes said the convoy arrived safely.
“Thirty-five hours in a not so comfortable convoy are certainly better than three hours’ bombing and sitting under the shells,” he said.
A UN statement separately said he and other key staff will “remain in Sudan and will continue to work towards a resolution to the current crisis”.
‘Unspeakable destruction’
With Khartoum airport disabled after battles that left charred aircraft on the tarmac, many foreigners were airlifted out from smaller airstrips, to countries including Djibouti and Jordan.
US special forces swooped in with Chinook helicopters Sunday to rescue diplomats and their dependents, while Britain launched a similar rescue mission.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said more than 1,000 EU citizens had been taken out during a “long and intense weekend” involving airlift missions by France, Germany and others.
China said Monday it had “safely evacuated” a first group of citizens and would “try every means to protect the lives, properties and safety of 1,500 plus Chinese compatriots in Sudan”.
Source: AFP