The Coast Regional Commissioner has announced that the death toll from the Shakahola cult massacre has increased to 419.
This follows the discovery of 16 additional bodies that were exhumed on Tuesday, July 18.
Onyancha confirmed that the total number of rescues remains at 95 since the operation commenced in April.
She further mentioned that no new arrests were made on Tuesday, keeping the number of individuals arrested at 37.
Additionally, a total of 258 DNA samples have been collected as part of the investigation.
The exhumation exercise is currently in its fourth phase since it commenced in April.
Detectives mentioned that the exhumation is expected to take significantly longer than initially anticipated due to the continuous discovery of new graves on a daily basis.
”At the beginning of the week, we had 40 new mass graves. But we keep on stumbling on new graves; sometimes we find graves even where we pitch our tents,” said an officer.
