One male rescued at Shakahola

One male adult was on Wednesday rescued alive from Shakahola Forest.

Coast Regional Commissioner Rhoda Onyancha said as at 3.35pm, no arrests had been made.

The number of people rescued so far stood at 49 while those arrested was at 24 as at Wednesday.

Exhumation and postmortems have been suspended due to bad weather.

This comes hours after Senator Danson Mungatana was elected the chair of the Senate team to probe mysterious cult deaths in Shakahola, Kilifi.

Mungatana will be deputized by nominated Senator Shakila Abdalla.

The two were elected during the ad-hoc committee inaugural meeting held in Parliament Buildings on Wednesday.

The committee was established after senators adopted the motion brought to the House by Majority Whip Boni Khalwale, who is also the Kakamega senator.

The committee has 90 days to establish circumstances that led to the deaths of the faithful of the Good News International Church, which is linked to disgraced Pastor Paul Makenzie.

The committee will also investigate the role played by Makenzie, his pastoral team and the Kilifi County Security Committee in aiding and abetting the deaths of the church’s followers.

The committee is set to start its public hearings next week with a date with the Interior CS Kithure Kindiki, Attorney General Justin Muturi and the Registrar of Societies in the Office of the Attorney General.

Among the issues the committee will seek to establish from the officers include the registration status of religious organisations and the mitigation measures of the current case and regulations, if any, in use to control religious entities and their activities.

The committee will then move to Kilifi where it will meet the county government and its leadership, the county commissioner, the county security team and the victims of the affected families.

The committee will also conduct a site visit to Shakahola Forest, and meet victims of the affected families.

It will also visit the New Life Prayer Centre, in Mavueni, Kilifi, which is linked to Pastor Ezekiel Odero who is currently in custody awaiting to be arraigned in court.

The committee will also hold meetings with religious organisations where they will discuss measures that can avert religious extremism.

Some of the organisations are NCCK, Hindu Council of Kenya, SUPKEM, the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious organisations and traditional groups.

The Committee is also expected to invite members of the public with information to submit their views on the matter to the committee.