Sign up now for TIME's WorldWatch email newsletter. A few sheets of corrugated iron protrude from the scarred earth of a pretty, eucalyptus-studded hillside near the town of Kanungu in southwestern Uganda, twisting and snapping in the wind. That, and a residual stench of burnt and rotting bodies, are all that remain of the mud and concrete church that once stood there.
Children are innocent.
They had no choice in this. Ugandan police agree and with the discovery late last week of at least 150 more bodies, including 60 children, in two mass graves in a compound belonging to the cult 50 km from the church in Kanungu, are treating the deaths as murder. Officials were still trying to determine whether cult leader Joseph Kibwetere had died in the blaze or escaped. In the mid-1990s he established a base on land belonging to a senior sect member in remote Kanungu, close to the Congolese border. Using money provided by followers, who commonly sold their homes and possessions upon joining, and funds from groups and individuals overseas, Kibwetere and his fellow leaders built a small complex of houses, offices and a school.