Police say 120 cult followers killed in church blaze
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Your support makes all the difference.At least 120 followers of a doomsday sect were killed in a fire at a church in southwestern Uganda, police said yesterday.
At least 120 followers of a doomsday sect were killed in a fire at a church in southwestern Uganda, police said yesterday.
A police officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it appeared that the sect leader set off the blaze once his followers were inside.
"Preliminary reports indicate that the leader of this sect lured the people inside the church and set it on fire," the officer said.
The officer said the fire happened Friday in a small trading center called Kanungu, about 217 miles from Uganda's capital, Kampala.
He said the sect was known to have about 240 members and was called the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God. The sect believed the world will end in the year 2000, he said.
The group reportedly had been active in the region for some time.
A police spokesman told the BBC that the cult's leader told believers to sell off their possessions and prepare to go to heaven.
In the past year, the government disbanded two similar Ugandan cults.
In September, police raided a compound of the 1,000-member Doctrine of Brotherhood cult and found 24 decomposed bodies in shallow graves outside the compound in Bokoto, 28 Miles (45 kilometers) north of Kampala.
The cult leader reportedly offered followers space in heaven upon death in return for cash payment. Men were supposed to surrender their wives and the wives declare themselves unmarried before joining the sect.
In November, police raided a camp at Ntusi in the Sembabule district, home of a self-styled teen-age prophet who was said to eat nothing but honey.
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