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Kenyan court convicts Paul Mackenzie of murdering 191 in starvation cult

The Mombasa court found the self-proclaimed pastor and dozens of co-accused guilty over the Shakahola deaths, all but one of them children, and set sentencing for 6 November.

ScrollBeat DeskPublished: 19 Oct 2026, 23:05

Part of the River Galana at Shakahola in Kilifi County, Kenya, where the Good News International Church camp stood and more than 400 bodies were exhumed from shallow graves. File photo taken in August 2026. Dasegrama16 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

A court in Mombasa on Monday found self-proclaimed Kenyan preacher Paul Mackenzie and dozens of his co-accused guilty of murdering 191 people, all but one of them children, in the Shakahola forest starvation cult case.

Justice Diana Mochache delivered the judgment over roughly eight hours. Sentencing is set for 6 November.

Prosecutors said Mackenzie's Good News International Church ran a doomsday sect whose members were ordered to starve themselves and their children so they could “meet Jesus” before the world ended. The court found that fasting was enforced in stages, beginning with children, and that guards stopped followers from leaving the forest camp.

Mackenzie denied forcing anyone to starve and his co-accused pleaded not guilty, but the court rejected that defence. The BBC reported that the judge described followers as believing Mackenzie was “Jesus's mouthpiece”.

Police arrested Mackenzie in 2023 after a tip-off. Weeks later, authorities began exhuming bodies from shallow graves in Shakahola forest near Kenya's southeastern coast. More than 400 bodies have been recovered in total, many of them too decomposed to identify.

Families of victims attended the hearing. Francis Wanje, 62, who lost eight relatives including two grandchildren, told Al Jazeera the case had left the family with lasting psychological problems.

Mackenzie still faces separate cases, including terrorism and radicalisation charges, and allegations that he directed the deaths of 52 people in Kwa Binzaro village about 30km from Shakahola. He has denied those charges.

The Shakahola deaths prompted calls in Kenya for tougher regulation of religious organisations, after it emerged that Mackenzie had been arrested and released before the mass graves were discovered.

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NEXT STORY Bangladesh

15 cantonment boards add 19 services to myGov, with 185 online forms

Citizens can now apply from home for trade licences, certificates, utility connections and other services, pay fees online and download QR-coded documents.

ScrollBeat Desk20 Oct 2026, 00:54Open this article

Officials at the virtual launch of cantonment board services on the myGov platform on 19 October 2026. Photo: ISPR, published by BSS. ISPR via BSS

Fifteen cantonment boards across Bangladesh have added 19 civic services to the government's myGov platform, opening 185 online application forms to the public, the military's public relations directorate said on Monday.

The services include citizenship, inheritance, character and family certificates, trade licences, identity-card services, water and electricity connections, and vehicle passes. They also cover permission to dig up or cut a road, licences for rickshaws, vans and auto-rickshaws, approval to keep pets, and enrolment of developers.

Citizens can now apply from home, pay fees online where applicable and receive certificates with QR codes. They can track the progress of an application and give feedback on the service, while the boards can receive, verify, investigate and dispose of applications on the same platform.

The project began with a pilot in February 2025, when two services of the Dhaka Cantonment Board were put on myGov. After that, officials reviewed 63 services offered by the other 14 boards and selected 19 basic services for digitalisation.

Three workshops in March reviewed the services, and seven regional workshops in June and July finalised the forms, fees and procedures. In August and September, 140 officials and staff, including cantonment executive officers, were trained to run the system.

The Directorate of Military Lands and Cantonments implemented the project under the supervision of the Cabinet Division, with support from the Aspire to Innovate (a2i) programme. The launch was held in a virtual ceremony on Monday afternoon, with a2i Project Director Muhammad Anwar Uddin as chief guest and DMLC Director General Shamim Ahmed in the chair.

Officials said the change is meant to cut repeated trips to cantonment board offices, reduce the time and money applicants spend, and make service delivery more transparent and accountable. The platform is also expected to reduce paperwork in the boards' own work.

NEXT STORY Bangladesh

Rooppur Unit 1 to begin power start-up this month, 300MW targeted for December

Project officials say reactor power will be raised gradually from about 25 October, with the first trial supply to the national grid possible once output reaches roughly 35 per cent.

ScrollBeat Desk20 Oct 2026, 00:52Open this article

The Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant beside the Padma River in Pabna, seen with the Hardinge and Lalon Shah bridges. File photo, 2024: Jusujon1980, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Jusujon1980 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Bangladesh's first nuclear power plant is moving into its power start-up phase, a step that could eventually put the first Rooppur electricity on the national grid, project officials said.

A project official told Dhaka Tribune that the start-up would begin at zero to one per cent of power, likely on 25 October, and then rise in stages. Reaching about 35 per cent of capacity could take around 40 days if tests go to plan, which would allow an initial supply of about 300 megawatts in December.

The Bangladesh Atomic Energy Regulatory Authority approved the B-2 sub-stage for Unit 1 on 8 October, clearing the first controlled nuclear reaction. Unit 1 reached first criticality at 3:34pm on 11 October, meaning the reactor began a self-sustaining chain reaction at very low power.

Before any electricity reaches the grid, operators must complete reactor physics tests, raise thermal power, synchronise the turbine and obtain a trial operational licence from the regulator. The power start-up comes first; trial operation, known as Stage D, follows and could last around 10 months.

During that trial phase, output will be raised and lowered to test the plant and the grid's ability to absorb it, and the reactor may be shut briefly for checks. Bangladeshi operators will work alongside the Russian contractor during the period.

The International Atomic Energy Agency will send an Emergency Preparedness Review mission to Bangladesh from 8 to 18 November. Science and Technology Ministry secretary Md Anwar Hossain said the country needs coordinated agencies, trained staff, written guidelines and round-the-clock radiation monitoring to meet international standards.

Rooppur has two Russian-designed VVER-1200 units, each with a capacity of 1,200MW. Once both are running, the plant is meant to supply 2,400MW. The project has been delayed more than three years, and its cost has risen to about Tk 1.39 trillion, largely because of the taka's fall against the dollar.

Officials have stressed that December is a target, not a fixed date. A single failed test could force engineers to correct the problem and repeat the check, pushing the commissioning schedule back.