Pregnant woman and six children tortured and killed Evangelicals in Panama, authorities say

An example of why I don't regard faith as a positive thing.
Most news articles I've seen refer to them as a religious cult, avoid mentioning their religion.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/17/americas/panama-religious-sect-killings-scli-intl/index.html

By Rob Picheta and Jack Guy, CNN
Updated 12:39 PM ET, Fri January 17, 2020

A pregnant woman and six children -- including a 1-year-old baby and a 3-year-old -- were tortured, slaughtered and buried in a mass grave in Panama as part of a bizarre, ritualistic killing by a religious cult, authorities have said.

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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.

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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.

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https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-religious-death-cult-that-massacred-seven-in-panama

Inside the Religious Death Cult That Massacred Seven in Panama

Jeremy Kryt
Published Jan. 20, 2020 4:44AM ET

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Authorities had been alerted by a handful of villagers who turned up at a hospital outside the comarca showing signs of violent beatings, their mouths and tongues roasted with burning sticks, telling tales as best they could of strange rituals going on in the jungle.

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Upon arriving at the hamlet of Alto Terrón—situated in northwestern Panama and lacking both electricity and phone service—investigators found at least 15 people being tortured in a thatch-roofed structure belonging to a sect called “Nueva Luz de Dios” (New Light of God). The victims, including two pregnant women, were bound on the floor before a ritually slaughtered goat. At least one woman was naked, and had likely been raped. Meanwhile, some nine “priests” were exhorting the prisoners to accept “the word of God,” while striking them with knives and machetes.

“All these rites were meant to kill them if they did not repent of their sins,” Prosecutor Baloyes said.

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During the 1970s, the region was targeted by a wave of zealous evangelical missionaries who came Bible-thumping down from the States, according to Sánchez. They proselytized a dogmatic brand of Christianity that allowed little room for native people’s ancestral beliefs and cultural traditions. Already isolated by language and rugged terrain, the Uga Chere proved particularly vulnerable to such foreign influence.

“The missionaries pushed them to forget their own history. They confused the people, and destroyed their cultural memory,” Sánchez said.

In place of an age-old belief system, the Uga Chere began to practice a “fundamentalist, highly conservative religion” based on a literal interpretation of the Bible “that radicalized the people.”

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