A Kenyan court on Friday sentenced Paul Mackenzie, the self-proclaimed pastor who led the Good News International Church, to 200 years in prison after his conviction on 191 murder counts covering 190 children and one adult^2,3.

The sentence closes a criminal case over deaths discovered in 2023 in Shakahola Forest in Kilifi County on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast^2,3. DW said about 400 people were found dead in what it called the Shakahola Forest Massacre². Times of India, citing Reuters, said authorities recovered 429 bodies³.

Mackenzie was convicted in October². Prosecutors said he told followers the world was nearing its end and that starving themselves would allow them to meet Jesus, and that children were made to fast first, then women and men³. DW said he told followers to starve themselves as part of an apocalyptic religious group².

Times of India said investigators described coercion and violence in the settlement, including beatings or restraint of people who refused to fast or tried to leave, and that post-mortem examinations identified starvation as a major cause of death, with some injuries as well³. The prosecution argued the deaths were an organized operation rather than voluntary fasting³.

A Kenyan Senate committee report, as summarized by Times of India, said Mackenzie intensified recruitment during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, used agents to attract vulnerable people, and isolated followers in the remote forest³. DW said the church had operated since 2003².

DW noted he could have faced the death penalty, which remains in Kenyan law, but that Kenya has not carried out an execution since 1987². Reuters published a matching headline on the 200-year term for the murder of 190 children; the full Reuters article was not available to this desk¹. What happens next on any appeal was not reported in the accounts read here^2,3.