Initial autopsies show children starved, asphyxiated in Kenyan cult

FILE PHOTO: A man records the names of his missing children who are followers of a Christian cult named as Good News International Church, who believed they would go to heaven if they starved themselves to death in Shakahola, at the Red Cross desk at the Malindi sub district hospital in Malindi, Kilifi county, Kenya April 27, 2023. REUTERS/Monicah Mwangi

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The bodies of several children exhumed in eastern Kenya showed signs of starvation and in some cases asphyxiation, a government pathologist said on Monday, as investigators began the first autopsies on over 100 people linked to a doomsday cult.

On Monday investigators said they had completed 10 autopsies, comprising nine children aged between 18 months and 10 years, and one female adult, from the 101 bodies discovered last month in shallow graves in Shakahola Forest, Kilifi County.