73 group members who died of starvation were found dead in Kenya.

Kenya was shocked when the bodies of 73 people who had died of starvation were found near the town of Malindi on the coast.

The number of bodies in a case about a Kenyan cult that forced its members to starve went up to 73 on Monday, police sources said, as more bodies were found in mass graves in a forest near the coast.

Kenyan President William Ruto has said that he will stop people from doing “unacceptable” things in the name of religion.

The Good News International Church and its leader, Paul Mackenzie Nthenge, are under a full-scale investigation. Nthenge is said to have taught that death by starvation leads people to God.

The police had called the suspect Makenzie Nthenge before.

Some of his followers may still be hiding in the bush near Shakahola. The police raided the area earlier this month after a local charity gave them a tip.

Since then, the bodies of dozens of people who were buried together in small holes have been dug up.

A police officer told the reporters, “We’ve found 73 bodies in the forest by this evening, and the search will continue tomorrow.”

He said, “It is very sad that these people died and were buried in shallow graves because we found six bodies in one grave today.”

Another official also confirmed the number of deaths and said that some of the bodies were still in the bush and hadn’t even been buried.

Police chief Japhet Koome, who went to the spot on Monday, said that the number had been 58 earlier.

Teams are looking for more graves and possible group survivors in a 325-hectare (800-acre) area that has been declared a crime scene.

Ruto said that there was “no difference” between bad preachers like Nthenge and terrorists when he spoke in Kiambu county, which is next to Nairobi.

“Terrorists use faith to get people to support their horrible actions. People like Mr. Mackenzie do the same thing with religion.

“I’ve told the right people to look into it and find out why people want to use religion to promote a weird, unacceptable ideology.”

There are now questions about how the cult was able to keep going even though Nthenge had drawn police attention six years ago.

Speaker of the Senate Amason Jeffah Kingi said in a statement:

“The growing horror of the Shakahola cult deaths should and must wake up the whole country, especially the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and our community policing program,” said the prime minister.

“How did such a terrible crime, planned and carried out over a long time, get past our intelligence system?”

Nthenge was caught in 2017 and charged with “radicalization.” He had told parents not to send their kids to school because the Bible didn’t approve of it.

Local news reports say that he was caught again last month after two children died of hunger while in the care of their parents.

Before he turned himself in to police after the Shakahola raid, he paid bail of 100,000 Kenyan shillings, which is about $700.

Koome says that 14 more people are in jail because of the deaths of the Shakahola. The court will hear the case on May 2.