A section of Binzaro suspects in Court on Wednesday

Teachers from Busia and Siaya counties have told the Mombasa High Court how several pupils disappeared from school after allegedly joining their parents at a fasting camp linked to controversial preacher Paul Mackenzie in Kwa Binzaro, Kilifi County.

The witnesses testified that the learners failed to return for the second term of 2025. Investigations later linked them to the camp, where authorities exhumed 28 bodies from shallow graves.

Mackenzie and seven co-accused are facing murder and crimes against humanity charges over the deaths.

The site is about four kilometres from Shakahola, where hundreds of people died in a separate religious fasting-related tragedy.

The evidence was presented before Lady Justice Wendy Kagendo during the ongoing trial.

St Peter’s Budokomi Secondary School principal Dishon Shihundu told the court that the Directorate of Criminal Investigations contacted him on December 16, 2025, seeking confirmation of the enrolment of Form 2 student Jael Atieno Ochieng.

Led in his testimony by Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Frankline Sirima, Shihundu said Jael was last seen at school on March 19, 2025.

He presented certified copies of the admission register, class attendance register, report card and certificate of merit to confirm her enrolment.

The principal described Jael as; “A bright student who had qualified to represent the school at the Regional Science and Engineering Fair.”

He said efforts to contact her parents were unsuccessful.

“I also sent students from her village to establish her whereabouts, but were we informed that she had left home with her parents two days earlier,” he said.

In August 2025, Jael’s brother told him that the family had travelled to Kilifi, Kwa Binzaro and that the student was feared dead.

The court heard that DNA analysis later identified a body exhumed from the site as that of Jael’s father.

Salma Olayo Anyitu, a senior teacher at Goro Primary School in Siaya county, told the court that the DCI Homicide Unit wrote to the school on December 16, 2025, seeking confirmation of three pupils identified as Florence Akinyi, Christine Achieng and Mary Atieno.

Anyitu said the three joined the school on January 8, 2024, after transferring from other schools in Siaya and Kisumu counties.

She described Mary, a Grade 6 pupil, as a talented athlete.

The teacher told the court that none of the three returned for the second term of 2025.

According to the evidence, the pupils and their siblings, Shadrack Ochieng, Esther Achieng and Nathan, left their rural home with their parents on March 30, 2025, for Kwa Binzaro to participate in fasting.

DNA analysis has since identified three bodies recovered from the site as those of Mary Atieno, Florence Akinyi and Shadrack Ochieng.

Jackline Awiti Akinyi, manager of Kamalumbe Early Childhood Development Education Centre in Siaya, was the third witness to testify.

She confirmed that Shadrack Ochieng and Esther Akinyi were learners at the centre, in PP1 and PP2, respectively.

Akinyi told the court that the children’s grandmother informed her that they had travelled to Kwa Binzaro on March 30, 2025, alongside four other siblings.

The testimony adds to the evidence linking missing schoolchildren to the fasting camp, where investigators recovered bodies from shallow graves.

The hearing comes a week after the Director of Public Prosecutions secured the conviction of Mackenzie and 28 co-accused over the murder of 191 people, including 190 children, in the Shakahola massacre case.

Mackenzie and his co-accused are also facing separate manslaughter charges at the Mombasa Law Courts and radicalisation charges at the Shanzu Law Courts over the Kwa Binzaro deaths.

The prosecution is expected to call more witnesses as the trial continues.

The testimony highlights how the Kwa Binzaro deaths disrupted families and left schools struggling to account for missing learners. Teachers’ records and accounts of pupils who failed to return to class provide investigators with a timeline of their disappearance. DNA identification has also helped establish the identities of some victims, linking school absences to bodies recovered from the site.