Kenyan police authorities on Friday confirmed four people have died in an occultation underground in the Kenyan coastal town of Malindi while starving to “meet Jesus.”

Eleven emaciated others were rescued from the location.

The police said in a security report that they had been tipped off that there were dozens of people starving to death at a private farm in the area.

According to the report, the victims were starving after being informed this was part of the way to “go and meet Jesus.”

The person behind the brainwashing was a pastor of Good News International Church, who had been arrested in the past over similar offences, police said.

The security officers who visited the scene on Thursday were able to reach a few households and managed to rescue 15 people, among them six were emaciated and in critical condition.

Medics were called in to assist in evacuation but four of the victims died in the process, police said.

The informer, an insider in the church, told the police of a mass shallow grave with the bodies of 31 victims of the brainwashing in an unidentified place in a forest.

Authorities have decried rising cultism in the coastal area, calling for serious attention and efforts to address the issue.

(Xinhua/NAN)