At Least 200 Burnt Alive In Ugandas Cult Suicide

More than 200 people died in an apparent mass suicide by a doomsday cult in a makeshift church in western Uganda, the country's police chief said.

On Friday morning, members of the Ten Commandments of God cult entered their church in Kanungu, Rukingire district, and reportedly set themselves ablaze during the service. Uganda's chief inspector of police, John Kisembo, said that it was also not clear whether the cult's leader, Joseph Kibwetere, was among the dead, or whether he had escaped before his followers burnt to death.

The police were treating the incident as both suicide and murder because children were involved. "Definitely it is both because there were a big number of children who were led there by their parents," he said.

 

Followers of the Ten Commandments of God' cult had locked themselves into their church at breakfast time on Friday and set themselves alight. All 235 registered members of the sect in the small town of Kanungu had probably perished in the fire and unregistered new arrivals may also have died.

The wooden-framed windows of the church appeared to have been boarded up and there was no sign of a struggle. The bodies lay in the centre of the shell of the building. The corpses had been left where they lay for forensic experts to examine later today.