A pregnant woman and five of her children were found dead in a jungle community in Panama following what is believed to have been a violent “satanic” ritual.

Police freed 15 others, who were members of the Ngabe Bugle indigenous group and had been allegedly rounded up by lay preachers to be tortured so they would “repent their sins”, said authorities.

Investigators discovered the bodies in a mass grave after locals alerted authorities last weekend about several families being held against their will by a religious sect called The New Light of God.

The sect had been performing rituals and exorcisms inside a makeshift “church” in a remote area about 250km from Panama City.

A freshly dug grave was found about a mile from the church building and contained the bodies of five children as young as a year old, their pregnant mother, and a 17-year-old female neighbour.

The survivors suffered bodily injuries after being tied up and beaten with wooden cudgels and Bibles, burned, and hacked with machetes.

Read more: yahoo