The grim shadow of the Shakahola tragedy has resurfaced in Malindi after detectives detained Anastacia Mwele, the mother of controversial preacher Paul Nthenge Mackenzie, and rescued children who were allegedly subjected to prolonged fasting and kept out of school.
The incident has triggered fresh questions about whether the ideological influence that investigators say surrounded Mackenzie’s Good News International Church has survived beyond the mass deaths that shocked Kenya in 2023.
Mwele was arrested at her home in Furunzi, Malindi, on Wednesday alongside grandchildren aged between six and 14.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations said the children were allegedly being subjected to fasting and teachings associated with Mackenzie’s religious beliefs.
Reports initially indicated that 10 grandchildren had been taken into police custody, although subsequent reporting by the DCI-linked account and other outlets put the number of children rescued at eight.
The children were taken to Malindi Police Station as detectives investigated their circumstances.
The case is particularly disturbing because of what fasting came to represent in the Shakahola investigation.
Mackenzie became the central figure in one of Kenya’s most devastating cult-related tragedies after hundreds of bodies were discovered in shallow graves in Shakahola Forest, Kilifi County.
Authorities accused the self-styled preacher of using religious teachings to persuade followers to abandon conventional aspects of life, including education and healthcare, and to undertake extreme fasting in pursuit of what followers were allegedly told was salvation.
The Parliamentary inquiry into the Shakahola deaths found that concerns about Mackenzie’s activities had existed for years.
The committee noted that complaints relating to his opposition to formal education and alleged radicalisation had been raised as early as 2017, raising serious questions about why earlier interventions failed to stop the movement from growing.
The eventual discovery of mass graves in 2023 exposed the devastating consequences of the alleged teachings.
More than 400 bodies were ultimately recovered during the Shakahola investigation, with children among the victims.
Mackenzie has denied the allegations against him and remains entitled to the presumption of innocence.
What makes the latest Malindi incident particularly striking is the apparent similarity between the allegations now being investigated and one of the practices at the centre of the Shakahola prosecution — fasting.
According to reports, the children had allegedly been out of school for about three months and were spending their days at home, watching television, playing or helping their grandmother on the farm.
Investigators are now trying to establish why the children stopped attending school and whether religious instructions played a role.
Dan Mackenzie, one of Paul’s sons, reportedly alerted police after becoming concerned that his younger relatives were continuing to follow teachings involving fasting.He said he opposed the practice and wanted the children to eat and return to school.
That account, if confirmed by investigators, introduces an important dimension to the case: the possibility that the danger is no longer confined to the remote forests where the original tragedy unfolded, but may involve the transmission of beliefs within families.
Can a movement survive its leader?That is perhaps the biggest question raised by the Malindi arrests.
Mackenzie has been in custody since his arrest in 2023, yet prosecutors have continued to allege that his influence extended beyond the physical confines of Shakahola.
In the ongoing criminal proceedings, investigators have told courts that Mackenzie’s teachings allegedly encouraged followers to withdraw from education, healthcare, employment and ordinary social life.
The prosecution has also presented evidence concerning the role of fasting in the deaths. In April this year, a High Court in Mombasa ruled that Mackenzie and 30 co-accused persons had a case to answer in the 191-count murder case.
The prosecution said it had presented evidence from 121 witnesses, including survivors, investigators and experts.
Separately, Mackenzie and other suspects are facing proceedings linked to the Kwa Binzaro deaths, where prosecutors allege that at least 52 people died in circumstances connected to the Good News International movement.
The accused face charges including radicalisation, facilitating terrorist acts, organised criminal activity and manslaughter, among others.
These are allegations before the courts and have not been finally determined.
The latest arrests revive a question that has haunted the country since the mass graves were discovered: what happens to followers and family members who remain attached to a radical religious ideology after its leader is arrested?
Shakahola exposed more than the alleged actions of one preacher. It revealed weaknesses in community reporting, child protection, regulation of religious organisations and the ability of security agencies to act on early warnings.
A parliamentary inquiry subsequently concluded that the criminal justice system had failed to deter Mackenzie’s activities despite previous cases and complaints.
The lesson from Shakahola was therefore supposed to be that warning signs should never again be ignored.
The Malindi operation now presents authorities with an opportunity to demonstrate whether that lesson has been learnt.
The most vulnerable people in the latest episode are not the adults involved in the religious dispute but the children.
At ages six to 14, they depend on adults for food, education, healthcare and protection. If investigators establish that they were deliberately denied food or prevented from attending school because of an ideological belief, the matter goes beyond freedom of worship and enters the territory of child protection.
The authorities will therefore have to tread carefully.Religious freedom is constitutionally protected, but that protection does not give adults an unrestricted licence to expose children to practices that may endanger their health or deny them their basic rights.
The investigation should consequently establish the facts — rather than simply revive the emotional trauma of Shakahola.
The arrest of Mackenzie’s mother does not, by itself, prove that a new cult network is operating or that the children were being deliberately starved.
But it is an unmistakable warning that the ideas associated with the Shakahola tragedy deserve close scrutiny wherever they reappear, particularly when children are involved.Kenya’s biggest failure in the Shakahola saga was not merely discovering the graves too late.
It was the failure to act decisively enough when warning signs were already visible.This time, detectives have arrived before another forest fills with graves.
The real test now is whether the investigation can determine who was instructing the children to fast, why they were kept away from school, whether anyone else was involved — and whether Mackenzie’s influence is still reaching people from behind prison walls.
That is the question that could determine whether the Malindi incident remains an isolated child-protection case or becomes another chapter in the unfinished Shakahola story.
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