A witness has told a Mombasa court that she buried three of her six siblings who perished in the Shakahola Forest.

While testifying against controversial pastor Paul Makenzi, Ms Israel Veronica Amanya told Mombasa Chief Magistrate Alex Ithuku that her siblings were identified using her DNA.

She said her late siblings, Eja Amanya, Lorna Zayuni Amanya, and Britson Amanya, were identified after she provided saliva samples for a DNA test.

The 20-year-old woman also identified her father, Enos Amanya, her mother, Ann Anyoso, and her uncle, Daniel Amanya, who were in court facing charges alongside Pastor Makenzi.

She was testifying in a case in which Makenzi and 92 others were charged with 238 counts of manslaughter.

The second-born in a family of seven told the court that one of the youngest siblings she buried was laid to rest at Shakahola, along with two others. She said her mother had confessed this to her sister.

“My late sister, Lorna Amanya, told me that she had gone to see our mother, who lied to her that our siblings had gone to visit Dad in a different homestead within Shakahola.

“When she waited for their return in the evening in vain, she decided to spend the night at my mum’s home. The following morning, after she kept insisting, my mother took her outside and showed her a grave where she had buried the three siblings. She then told Lorna that she should also start fasting so that they could go to heaven,” Veronica told the court.

The Form Two dropout confessed to the court that she had been a follower of Makenzi’s church, Good News International, for six months.

She told the court that while she was in Form Two, her father forced her to leave school after joining Pastor Makenzi’s church.

She explained that while attending a boarding secondary school in Nairobi, her father came to pick her up, along with her sister, and from that day onwards, she was unable to continue her education.

She went on to explain that after dropping out of school, her family relocated from Nairobi to Malindi before eventually moving to Shakahola.

“I lost six siblings in Shakahola due to starvation, and I participated in DNA sampling, which helped me identify three of them. My mother had also pressured me to fast, claiming it would help me reach heaven, but I refused,” she told the court.

She also revealed—under the guidance of Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) officer Victor Owiti—that her mother and other siblings had changed their names, making it difficult to identify them.

For instance, in court documents, her mother, Ann Anyoso Alukwe, was recorded as Ann Auka Akello.

Her late brother, Eja Nyaleso, was identified as Patience, while her late sister, Lorna Zayuni, was known as Zion.