According to reports, more than 20 bodies were exhumed in Kenya as part of a probe into a starvation group.

The police began excavating remains from suspected graves on Friday in more than 12 locations.

It is believed that they contain the remains of members of a Christian fringe sect, who believed they could go to heaven by starving themselves to death.

Citizen TV broadcast footage showing detectives marking out earth patches with sticks and yellow taping in Shakahola Forest in Kilifi County on Thursday.

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This is near where 15 members of Good News International Church were rescued by police last week.

Paul Mackenzie was arrested after a tip that suggested at least 31 shallow graves of his followers.

Mackenzie denies any wrongdoing.

The police said that the 15 worshippers who were rescued had been instructed to starve to death so that they could meet their Creator.

Four of the patients died before reaching hospital.

Titus Katana helped the police identify graves.

“We showed the graves to police and we also saved the life of another woman who had only a few hours remaining, otherwise, she would have been dead”, Mr Katana said on Citizen TV.

Matthew Shipeta, from Haki Africa, an organization that promotes human rights, reported seeing at least 15 shallow graves within the forest.

Helen Mikali is the manager of an orphanage who also helps investigators. She said that she visited villages in the area where parents and their children have disappeared.

“I personally have visited around 18 graves of children,” Ms Mikali said to Citizen TV. She didn’t say how she knew that the graves held the remains of children.

Mackenzie was arrested by police last month and then released. He had encouraged the parents of two young boys to starve their children and choke them to death.

Mackenzie claimed that he had been the victim of hostile propaganda by some of his former co-workers during a court appearance. The Kenyan Standard reported that.