Aunt of child who starved to death after parents put him on vegan diet speaks out

The sister of a woman who became tied up in an ‘obscure religious movement’ and obsessed with ‘clean eating’ – and whose severely malnourished toddler son died – has expressed her regret at their estranged relationship.

Naiyahmi Yasharahyalah, 43, and her husband Tai were sentenced in December 2024 to a total of 44 years following the death of their three-year-old son, Abiyah, in 2020.

Abiyah’s body was found behind a terraced house in Birmingham in 2022, where they had previously lived. Both parents had denied neglect, causing or allowing the death of a child and peverting the course of justice.

Naiyahmi’s sister, Cassie Rowe, 47, has now told the story of how her sister became ostracised – as well as the moment Cassie voiced concern after noticing the toddler had vanished from his mother’s social media posts.

Tai and Naiyahmi were said to be members of a religious movement called the Royal Ahayah’s Witness, developing their own beliefs by blending elements of West African religion with New Age mysticism.

The couple lived off grid and by their own laws, claiming to have renounced their citizenship. Tai, a former medical genetics student before quitting the field, styled himself as the head of a fictional ‘kingdom’.

Their homes were in squalor and the family survived on a restrictive vegan diet.

The court heard the parents prioritised their ‘distorted system of beliefs’ over the welfare of their child, who became severely malnourished.

Following his death, they kept his body in their bed for eight days in the hope he would be reincarnated, before embalming him using frankincense and myrrh and performing a ritualistic burial in their garden in Handsworth.

His body revealed he had a host of health problems at the time of his death, including bone fractures, rickets, anaemia, stunted growth and severe dental decay.

Experts suggested if he died from a respiratory illness – as his parents claimed – the effects of malnutrition would have been a ‘more than minimal’ cause of his death.

Cassie said she voiced concerns to her mother when her estranged sister Naiyahmi stopped posting pictures of her ‘lovely’ nephew on social media.

‘I just assumed that it was to do with not wanting [him] on social media anymore,’ she told the Daily Mail.

Cassie and Naiyahmi’s mother suggested Cassie reach out to her sister. Cassie resisted and said she did not want to be ‘dragged’ into Naiyahmi’s turbulent relationship again – after Naiyahmi had left and then rekindled her relationship with Tai.

Cassie said: ‘I’m very empathetic and I [would] just get dragged back in, and I didn’t want to. I was dealing with my own health issues at the time.

‘I just think my sister had messed us about so many times, everybody was just kind of fed up with her at this point and nobody wanted to get involved.

‘Obviously, had we known this was going to happen…it’s just something that you don’t expect to ever happen.’

Around the time Naiyahmi stopped posting about Abiyah, Cassie also posted about her health difficulties. Naiyahmi responded, asking about Cassie’s health and sharing her own health woes.

‘She started telling me that she was going through some health issues and it was some spiritual thing.

‘But that was after Abiyah had died. I didn’t know when she reached out to me.

‘I’ve looked back [through] my communication with her and I’m like, but, she’d spoken to me after he died and she said nothing.’

Cassie also stated she regretted helping Naiyahmi to get back in touch with Tai, following a separation.

The couple rekindled their relationship at Abiyah’s first birthday, after Cassie had help Naiyahmi raise Abiyah as a single mother for around a year.

‘I’d let her invite his dad to the birthday party,’ she said. ‘I was trying to do the right thing.’

Naiyahmi and Tai began dating in 2015. Naiyahmi had been a devout Christian at the time, and Cassie said Tai had seemed ‘very polite’ and ‘normal’.

Soon, the pair began sharing on social media that they were involved in a ‘niche religious group’ and within months, Naiyahmi became estranged from her family.

‘We started seeing posts on social media where they were denouncing the Western world, and they didn’t agree with interacial relationships.

‘I think that’s what caused the problem with us as a family because we’re quite diverse. We’ve all got mixed race children, so it was a bit of a shock. And we didn’t attend the wedding.’

She added: ‘Obviously, I was concerned because this is my sister and we tried to intervene, but she just kind of pushed us all away.

‘She was just like, “No, I’m marrying him and that’s it”.’

‘I’ve seen her in relationships where she’s completely changed her whole personality. So, for me, it wasn’t anything new.

‘To see her following somebody else, I was like, “Oh, there she goes again,” but I didn’t expect it to go as far as it did.

‘I know why she was doing it. He made her feel special and that’s what she always looked for.

‘He was heavily into being proud to be black, and being proud of African heritage. And so, I think that made her feel beautiful, as well.’

In 2016, Naiyahmi arrived on her family’s doorstep heavily pregnant and ‘shockingly thin’. She told them her husband had sent her home because they had fallen out and he had ‘some of his god’s work to do’.

She recalled her fury at both parents: ‘I was angry at him and I was angry at her as well because I’ve children and I do everything to make sure they’re healthy and they’re safe.

‘I kind of had a go at her a little bit. I was like, “I know they are your beliefs, but they have got you into this position”.

‘And she was just reciting scriptures and things. It was almost like she was there but not there.

‘She was just smiling at me and I’m thinking, “Where is my sister gone, this isn’t my sister”.’

Naiyahmi stayed with her family for around a year after Abiyah’s birth, spending six months with Cassie.

Speaking of her sister’s time back with the family, she said: ‘She was a doting mother, I’d even say that she was overprotective.

‘She was still vegan but they were eating a good diet and she’s started wearing makeup again, she took her headscarf off.

‘She was going to playgroups, she’d come out with me and my friends. She never left [Abiyah] with anybody.’

Following the rekindling of her marriage, Naiyahmi moved out of her sister’s home and into the property in Handsworth, where Abiyah’s body was discovered. She entirely cut contact with her family.

Cassie only received an update on her sister when Abiyah’s remains were found.

‘I don’t think it really sank in straight away,’ she said. ‘The family were all trying to figure out what had happened, and it was difficult.

‘We fell out as a family because some people were sympathising and there were others who were just, like, “No, she’s done wrong”.

‘So, it’s been very difficult to navigate because how do you navigate something like this? That’s happened to a family member, by another family member.’

Cassie is raising money via a GoFundMe to pay for a headstone for Abiyah, so the family have ‘something that lasts’ to remember him.

Remebering him, she said: ‘He was very timid, and just a lovely child. I just want something that reflects who he was, in the short time that he was on this earth.’

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