A fake sign proclaims the Melkio St. Joseph Missions of Messiah Church in Africa, which is perched in the grass along the Rongo-Homa Bay Road in Kenya’s Migori County. Beyond it, a sandy path meets big blue and purple gates that barricade the now-deserted grounds from view.
When rumors of secret burials and “cult-like” practices came to light just over a month ago, the church in Opapo village.
On April 21, local police stormed the grounds and discovered two bodies buried within the fenced compound – including that of a police officer who was also a church member – as well as dozens of other worshippers who had been living there.
57 people were saved and taken into custody during the raid. In the weeks since, most have been released, but police have banned them from returning to the church and sealed off the compound.
For Kenyans, the incident has opened the minds of other contentious churches that are rife with abuse allegations, such as the 2023 case in which more than 400 members of a church-cult were killed in the Shakahola Forest.
In Opapo village, residents are troubled by the deaths , and the decades-long secrecy surrounding the church. Many people support the compound’s permanent closure and exhumation and burial of the dead there.
Brian Juma, 27, has lived directly beside the church all his life. According to him, the church’s followers prayed to a man who had established himself as a sort of god figure.
Juma claims that when the church leader died 10 years ago, followers did not immediately bury him but prayed for three days in the hope that he would rise.
The congregation was established in their area in the early 1990s, according to Pauline Auma, a 53-year-old mother of six who also resides close to the church.
“When it came, we thought it was a normal church like any other. My sister once said that the place was like other churches when she attended one, but she later came over and explained that things weren’t going to go as planned. For example, she said the Father there claimed to be God himself”, Auma recounted.
The church began recruiting new members from various locations throughout the nation in the years that followed. Juma said congregants were not from around the area, spoke different languages, and never left the compound to go to their own homes.
The church has several branches in the Kenyan Nyanza region, and members move from one location to the next, according to Caren Kiarie, a human rights activist from neighboring Kisumu County.
Many people came to worship and live within the church full time, Opapo villagers remember.
“They were very friendly people who did business around the Opapo area and interacted well with the people here”, Juma said. They all returned inside the church in the evening, but they would never live there. Within the church compound, they had cattle, sheep, poultry and planted crops for their food”.
Locals claim that the worshippers’ children, some with their parents and others who neighbors claimed were taken in alone, never attended school, and that they were prohibited from seeking medical care if they were ill.
On the day of the police raid and rescue, many of the worshippers looked weak and ill, said Juma, who over the years befriended some young people whose parents belonged to the church. He remarked, “They were sick because they were never allowed to go to the hospital or even take pain medication,” citing what his neighbors had already said to him. Auma believes those who were rescued that day were the sickly ones, as the others had escaped.
The 57 initially objected to leaving the compound, insisting that the church was their only “home.” But police took them to the nearby Rongo Sub-county Hospital to be treated. Instead of resending medical bills, they began singing Christian praise songs in Dholuo. Auma said the songs were chants asking God to save them and take them home to heaven.
Health workers advised them to be moved out of the hospital because they were disturbing other patients. That’s when they were taken into police custody. The worshippers were released from police custody two weeks ago, but the assistant county commissioner, Josphat Kingoku, was unaware of where they were.
Seeking news about loved ones
Linet Achieng, a 71-year-old mother who left home to join the Migori church 11 years ago and never returned, worries about her in Homa Bay County’s Kwoyo.
Her mother was introduced to the church by a neighbour who was originally from Migori, Achieng said.
She had previously visited the church to seek medical attention after a backache that had troubled her for years, according to the 43-year-old, adding that the church had provided health guarantees.
The family initially kept in touch with their mother, asking when she would come home after being healed. She made repeated promises to return, but they never did. Achieng tried to convince her mother to leave the place, she said, but her attempts , were in vain.
She abruptly stopped talking to us, and when my younger brother and I went to see how she was doing, we were told to leave the church and told to stay there until we were ready, she said.
After the raid last month, Achieng learned her mother was among those rescued but says she does not want anything to do with her family.
One family is certain they will never see their loved one again, despite the many families of worshipers who wait to learn about their relatives.
According to local media reports, one of the victims was police constable Dan Ayo Obura, who passed away at the church compound on March 27.
He had been introduced to the church by his wife, who was a leader there, his relatives said.
According to his uncle Dickson Otieno, Obura left his job at the General Service Unit police headquarters  in Nairobi in February and then traveled on sick leave to Kisumu County.
He was taken to a hospital in the area, but after a week at the facility, “he disappeared”, Otieno told Al Jazeera.
We called the police, where we discovered him, and began to search for him everywhere in apprehension. Later, we had information from some neighbours that he is in Migori at a church. We then went there and inquired about him with the church leaders. They told us he was not at the church and had not seen him.
They called us about a month later to inform us that the person we were searching for had passed away the night before and that he had been buried that day.
The family then informed the police and human rights activists like Kiarie, and travelled to Opapo to try and locate his body.
In March, Kiarie, a rights advocate and paralegal at the Nyando Social Justice Centre, took the family to Opapo.
” We’ve not been given the body, “she told Al Jazeera, explaining that she interviewed residents and church members while in Opapo and heard concerning reports about what was happening at the compound.
She claimed that no one at the church was permitted to have intimate relationships, and that both husbands and wives had to break up after joining. These practices , were echoed by the compound’s neighbours in Migori.
According to Kelly, “There are also serious allegations of sexual violence at the church where the male leaders were having sex with the female and male leaders there.” That was why they did not want any man inside to touch the women because they belonged to them, “she alleged.
According to Kiarie, the compound’s neighbors have reported that there may be more than just two bodies buried inside since the police raid, which she said could be the reason Obura’s exhumation is stalled by. They’re still waiting because they said the issue has been picked up by the national government, and they]the national authorities] want to exhume the other bodies]that may be there], “she said.
If it is discovered that more people actually died and were buried there without their families’ knowledge, Kiarie believes the Migori church could turn out to be another instance of the Shakahola cult massacre.
From Migori to Shakahola
The events in Migori have opened wounds for many survivors and relatives of the 429 people who were starved to death in Kilifi County’s Shakahola, in 2023.
The congregationalists there also abandoned their homes and property in search of a meeting with their messiah, led by Pastor Paul McKenzie. But news reports said that at the church, they were radicalised and brainwashed, convinced that if they stopped eating they would die peacefully, go to heaven and meet their god.
The 32-year-old Kilifi mother of three claims that both Grace Kazungu’s parents and two of her siblings perished in the Shakhola church cult.
Whenever she and her brother tried to question the church’s teachings, the others would not hear a word against it, she told Al Jazeera.
They would argue that our church was the only holy and sacred way to heaven, and that we were “anti-Christ,” she said.
” Months later, I heard from my brother that they had sold the family’s property and were going to live inside the church after ditching earthly possessions.
“Our attempts to reach them were blocked by their leader. My husband broke the news to me one morning after a year that they had been found inside the forest and they were dead and buried”.
They were interred in mass graves within the church’s Shakahola Forest after their deaths. Upon discovery, following a tip from the local media, the police launched an operation to cordon off the area so they could exhume the bodies, test for DNA, and return the deceased to their relatives for proper burial.
Later, they detained the church’s leader, McKenzie, and charged him with “terrorism,” child torture, and the murder of 191 people. He and several other co-accused remain in police custody, pending sentencing.
In Opapo and Rongo towns, the Migori church’s followers were able to work, eat, and run their own businesses, in contrast to Shakahola. But like Shakahola, it also kept them living apart from the rest of society, barred them from accessing school, marriage and medical care, and severely punished supposed transgressions, according to locals who heard and witnessed violent beatings and fights inside the compound.
Religious leaders are frequently influenced by their beliefs and behavior in both the private and public domains in many societies, according to Fathima Azmiya Badurdee, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
“People are in search of ‘ hope ‘ in the daily issues they confront. Religious leaders play a crucial role in giving people hope for their futures, or even for life after death, she explained.
Still, “awareness among religious communities on opportunistic leadership and cult dynamics is needed”, she said, referring to the Opapo and Shakahola forest cases.
“Many people don’t question religious leaders, but they do so blindly. Words and opinions of religious leaders are taken as the gospel truth. She continued, “People frequently believe in any extreme forms propagated by these leaders due to their lack of questioning, critical thinking, or even religious literacy.”
I’m concerned that she might pass away.
Most of the 57 Migori worshippers are now back in society once more. While investigations and autopsies continued this month, police extended the arrest of four key suspects.
Assistant county commissioner Kingoku declined to provide details to Al Jazeera about any charges against the worshippers, saying they did not appear in court.
According to Michael Muchiri, a spokesman for the Kenyan National Police Service, “everyone found guilty will be prosecuted as directed by the law,”
Investigations are ongoing into Obura’s cause of death, verification of additional burials alleged by residents, and a probe into whether the church operated as an unregistered “company” rather than a licensed religious organisation.
The church had been allegedly registered as a business without proper authorization, according to Mutua Kisilu, the county commissioner. After the raid last month, Nyanza regional commissioner, Florence Mworoa, announced a region-wide crackdown on unregistered churches.
Muchiri claimed that the government oversees religious organizations and will prosecute anyone found guilty of breaking the law.
“Any illegally operating organisation – the government has been clear about it – is quickly shut down. Following is the Migori case, similar to the prosecution. Identification of such ‘ cult-like ‘ illegal religious entities is through the local intelligence and security teams and information from the local people”, Muchiri said.
After the worshippers were released from custody, Achieng finally spoke to her mother in Homa Bay one more time. She told her daughter that she had found a new home and that her family were “worldly” people who she should never associate with again.
I anticipated releasing her after she was released from police custody, but I was concerned that she might not agree to go home with me, Achieng told Al Jazeera. She believes her mother will never return home. At the church, I worry that she might pass away.
Meanwhile in Kisumu, Obura’s family continues to mourn him as they work with Kiarie’s organisation and the police to try and secure a court order allowing them to exhume his remains.
According to Luo culture and customs, all they want is for him to be buried at his ancestral home and be removed from the church.
Source: Aljazeera
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