starvation - The African Mirror

Mar

2024

By NIDAL AL-MUGHRABI and ARI RABINOVITCH

Netanyahu says Israel to press on with Rafah assault plan

ISRAELI Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would keep on with the military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, where aid agencies say famine is looming, while ceasefire talks were set to resume. Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting that Israel would push into Rafah, the last relatively safe place in the tiny, crowded Gaza enclave after more than five months of war, despite international pressure for Israel to avoid civilian casualties. "We will operate in Rafah. This will take several weeks, and it will happen," he said, without clarifying if he meant the assault would last for weeks or would begin…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Kenya court denies bail for suspected death cult leader

NEWS

A Kenyan court denied bail for cult leader Paul Mackenzie, who authorities say ordered followers to starve their children and themselves to death, and extended his detention by 30 days. The death toll climbed to 145 from 133 announced on Tuesday, and hundreds of people are still missing. Authorities are searching for remains in shallow graves scattered throughout a forest where Mackenzie's followers were living. Mackenzie, leader of the Good News International Church, has not yet been required to enter a plea after handing himself over to police last month. A lawyer representing Mackenzie, George Kariuki, has said the self-styled pastor is…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Kenya cult deaths: Church leader remains in jail

NEWS

A Kenyan cult leader accused of ordering his followers to starve themselves to death will be detained by police until a hearing on Friday, a court ruled as investigators searched for more bodies in a forest where 101 corpses have already been unearthed. Kenyan authorities say the dead were members of the Good News International Church led by Paul Mackenzie, 50, who had predicted the world would end on April 15 and ordered his followers to kill themselves to be the first to go to heaven. The death toll stands at a total of 109 so far, with 101, mostly children, found…

May

2023

By The African Mirror

Kenya cult deaths: kids starved, asphyxiated

NEWS

THE bodies of several children exhumed in eastern Kenya showed signs of starvation and in some cases asphyxiation, a government pathologist said, 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. Authorities say the dead were followers of the Good News International Church, led by pastor Paul Mackenzie, whom they accuse of instructing worshippers to starve…

Jun

2021

By The African Mirror

‘Eritrea troops to leave Tigray soon’

NEWS

MICHELLE NICHOLS ERITREAN troops in Ethiopia's Tigray region are expected to "definitely leave soon," Ethiopia's U.N. envoy said after a top U.N. official told the Security Council that Eritrea's soldiers were using starvation as a weapon of war. Outgoing U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock told the 15-member council in a private briefing that "no one should be surprised to see a rerun" of a devastating 1984 famine if violence in Tigray does not stop and Eritrean troops do not withdraw. "Rape is being used systematically to terrorize and brutalize women and girls. Eritrean soldiers are using starvation as a weapon…