The Kenyan government has completed the third phase of post-mortems on the bodies believed to be followers of a cult led by Paul Mackenzie Nthenge.
The process of exhumation had been halted until there was enough capacity to store and autopsy more bodies.
So far 338 post-mortems have been carried out on the bodies exhumed from the expansive Shakahola forest which is linked to the cult – 201 of which were of adults.
One-hundred-and-seventeen were children, but the ages of 20 others could not be established because they were badly decomposed.
One-hundred-and-thirty-one were male and 185 were female based on the coroner’s report, meanwhile 22 were too decayed to ascertain their sex.
At least 600 people are still missing, according to the Kenya Red Cross.
Kenya’s chief government pathologist, Dr Johansen Oduor, said that the post-mortem of a suspected leader in the cult, Joseph Juma Buyuka, who died in police custody will only be conducted after his family identifies his body.
“Performing a post-mortem on 338 bodies is not a simple thing. What we found is helping us learn more about the cause of death,” Dr Odour said.
Even though some bodies had signs of strangulation and blunt-force trauma, starvation remains the cause of death in most cases.
A ruling to determine how long Mr Mackenzie and 28 other suspects, including his wife, will remain in police custody will be delivered on 3 July.