Pregnant woman, six children ritually-tortured and killed by cult in Panama

Panamanian authorities raided a cult meeting and claim to have found more victims that the group was preparing to kill.

The nine who were arrested as well as their victims are indigenous people, however authorities stressed that the cult was not an indigenous religion but rather something "new" and isolated.

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The victims were killed for not repenting for their sins, the region's public prosecutor, Rafael Baloyes, told reporters. He added that the cult had been active for around three months but had not harmed people until this attack -- prompted when one of its members believed they had received a message from God. Police raided the premises of the obscure cult and rescued a further 15 people whom they believe were next in line for a similar murder, according to a statement from the public prosecutor's office. They arrested several people and found sufficient evidence to connect them to the killings, including machetes and other tools that police believe were used to kill the victims. One of those arrested was the grandfather of some of the murdered children. "It appears they were members of a religious cult that carried out rituals and they were apparently responsible for the crime," Baloyes said in the statement. The cult called itself "Church of God," he said.

According to an article from BBC after receiving the message from God the cult turned on its host community, kidnapping several villagers from their homes and torturing them to make them "repent", with death being the penalty for refusal or failure. Some villagers escaped the cult's raid and made their way to a hospital in a nearby town, where they were able to alert the police to the turn of events.

via International Skeptics Forum https://ift.tt/2TBmfQ7