Senate condemns inhumane living conditions in "cult-like" Kisumu church

The Senate's Ad hoc committee on the Proliferation of Religious Organisations has condemned the inhuman environment in which people who are allegedly sick are kept at the Coptic Holy Ghost Church in Kisumu.

The committee led by Vice Chairperson Shakilla Abdallah wants security agencies to ensure that people are not detained at the church for "prayers" owing to the pathetic environment in which the 'detainees' were kept.

"No church is permitted to detain patients who should be in the hospital. That is why we are taking these patients with us. We are leaving the officers behind to continue surveying this place to ensure that nobody is detained here again," she said.

Abdallah decried the untidy state of the rooms where the people were detained, exposing the victims to disease infections.

"We have seen the condition in which these people are being detained. These people are being treated like animals. The place is like a little Shakahola," She stated.

The committee promised to ensure that the patients rescued from the church and transferred to Kisumu's Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital are accorded proper medical care and helped to reunite with their families.

The senators' tour of the controversial worship centre came barely a week after Kisumu County Commissioner Hussein Alaso promised to take stern action against churches in Kisumu with the culture of setting up "medical wards" in places of worship and stopping patients from seeking proper medical care in the pretext of religion.

The Kisumu-based Coptic church has been engulfed in controversy over the years, with some members of the public accusing the church leader Father John Pesa of practising cultism.

Father Pesa, believes that he has healing prowess envied by many hence the protracted troubles with authorities.

He also denied the allegations that people were being mistreated at his church, terming the allegations as a witch-hunt by his enemies.