Six church worshippers die after drinking bleach at the insistence of their pastor who said it can heal

SIX worshippers have died in South Africa and another four are in critical conditions in hospital after their clergyman Prophet Rufus Phala asked them to drink cups of household bleach Jik as a sign of their faith.

In what is now becoming a growing phenomenon across sub-Saharan Africa, the pastor asked his congregation to engage in the bizarre act to prove their Christian faith. Prophet Phala, the pastor at AK Spiritual Christian Church, Makgodu, Limpopo, had asked the members of the church drinking the bleach to get healed.

However, the expected miracle did not materialise and following the deaths, the South African police are investigating the incident. According to the pastor, he has been getting WhatsApp messages from people who say they have been healed by obeying his command of drinking the bleach.

Prophet Phala said: “I know Dettol is harmful but God instructed me to use it. I was the first one to drink it."

A few months ago, another South African pastor sparked outrage after encouraging worshipers at his church to drink deadly rat poison. Pastor Light Monyeki told worshipers at the Grace Living Hope Ministries to drink from a bottle of water laced with noxious Rattex to nourish their bodies and heal their sicknesses.

After the pastor took a sip from the bottom, a multitude of congregants voluntarily ran to the front to have a drink of the deadly poison. Another South African self-styled prophet was jailed for four years and fined for spraying his followers in the face with insecticide as a supposed cure for an illnesses.

Pastor Lethebo Rabalago was found guilty by a court in the northwest town of Limpopo of five charges of grievous assault and contravening chemicals laws. He used Doom, a household insecticide on his followers, earning the sobriquet Prophet of Doom.