Kenya: Govt to Audit Organs On Shakahola Victims to Rule Out Organ Harvesting
Nairobi — The Chief Government Pathologist Johansen Oduor on Monday announced plans to audit organ count as postmortem examination for Shakahola cult victims to rule out organ harvesting.
Oduor made the announcement on Monday even as Kindiki said the government has nothing to hide from the public and would lay the facts bare if autopsies point to a possibility of organ harvesting.
“The scope of investigations will include an analysis on organs. If any of our people have their organs missing, we will tell the world,” Kindiki said after Oduor responded to media questions on the matter.
The CS promised accountability as autopsies on 109 bodies pulled out from mass graves got underway.
“There is nothing we are hiding that is the truth and we will have to find out why those organs are missing who took them, where did they take.”
The victims are linked to the starvation cult led by controversial televangelist Paul Mackenzie of the Good News International Church who is accused of driving his followers to starve to death as the only path to God.
DNA analysis
Oduor said government pathologists will be collaborating with the Red Cross, which has set up a tracing station where family members who have reported missing persons submit DNA samples that can aid in identifying the deceased relatives.
“For the DNA issue, there is a process that is running concurrently with the Red Cross team who have establish tracing center where once the relatives who have reported their people missing are identified, they will go and provide their DNA at the government chemist,” he said.
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He however said the conclusion of DNA analysis on Shakahola victims may take a month or more to facilitate reburials.
Oduor urged for patience even as Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki said the government is considering a memorial in Shakahola to honor the victims of Mackenzie’s starvation cult.
“We are also contemplating on what to do eventually with that scene of crime and once the process of exhumation, search and rescue is complete,” he stated.
“We will be announcing what government will do with regard to make sure that place remains a memorial for the country to ensure that we always remember that that tragedy visited us.”
The Interior CS sent a message of sympathy to the victims’ relatives and assured Kenyans that the government will not allow such a crime to take place on the Kenyan soil again.
He urged Kenyans to be patient even as government moves to establish the circumstances that led to the deaths.
