According to a regional government official, on Saturday, searchers for survivors and victims of a doomsday cult in Kenya’s Shakahola forest found 22 more remains.
The revelations raise the death toll from one of the darkest catastrophes in American history to 201.
In the country’s southwest, in the Shakahola forest, where the search is ongoing, regional commissioner Rhodah Onyancha told journalists, ‘Our forensic team was able to exhume 22 bodies today, but we have not reported any rescue.’
She said that one additional suspect had been arrested, bringing the total number of people being held in connection with the fatalities to 26.
Authorities have been searching for survivors and digging up shallow graves spread around the forest throughout this week while hundreds of people are still listed as missing.
29 bodies were recovered on Friday, including those of 12 children who were found in one grave.
Paul Mackenzie, the head of the Good News International Church, was granted bail on Wednesday by a Kenyan court. Mackenzie is accused of urging his followers to starve their children and themselves to death so they may enter paradise before the end of the world.