Inspector-General of Police Douglas Kanja, has ordered investigations into the entire expansive Chakama ranch in Kilifi County, which is linked to deadly cult activities.
Mr Kanja, who toured Kwa Bi Nzaro village on Wednesday, where 34 bodies were recovered by homicide and forensic detectives, said that going forward, security agencies must work together to prevent deadly indoctrination from happening again.
“We want to work as a team, a multi-agency. We want to engage everybody from the intelligence collection, the community and its leadership. This is a very expansive area and for that reason it needs all of us to come together so that we can overcome this,” said Mr Kanja.
The IG was accompanied by Directorate of Criminal Investigations boss Mohamed Amin and other top police commanders from Nairobi. The 50,000 acre land has several villages nestled within thickets, shrubs and forested sections.
Initially, after the Shakahola incident, police had mapped out just a section of the ranch that was declared a crime scene and was put under constant security. A similar action was taken last month when the Kwa Bi Nzaro deaths were unearthed.
The land has witnessed perennial ownership disputes over the years, with local security officials admitting that it is unclear how the villagers living there ended up establishing homes. Sections without settlements have been open to pastoralists and a source of livelihood for locals who camp in the forest to cut trees for charcoal, firewood and construction poles.
Detectives are probing possible links between Mackenzie, who has been charged for orchestrating the deaths of more than 450 people in Shakahola in 2023, and those behind the horror at Kwa Bi Nzaro. Detectives say some of the 11 people in custody had been rescued from Shakahola but later regrouped and resumed spreading the doomsday radical teachings.
“We have sent our best team of investigators here and very soon we are going to come out with a complete investigation file. We have arrested 11 suspects and four of them are actually the main ones,” Mr Kanja said.
Detectives say the suspects are connected to offenses of engaging in organised criminal activities, involvement in radicalisation, facilitation of terrorism acts, and murder.
Apart from the 34 bodies exhumed in the last two weeks, forensic experts also recovered 102 body parts scattered in the thickets, painting a grim picture of how followers of the cult were brutally murdered.
Police suspect that a woman who owned the homestead, Ms Shirleen Atambo, was the link between the mass killings at Kwa Bi Nzaro and Mackenzie. She is alleged to be a close associate of the preacher and radicalised people from as far as the Western and Nyanza regions into the fasting cult.
