Edward, a nine-year-old Kenyan boy, has always known his father worked for the British military. The boy’s lighter skin colour, compared to his peers, has led to years of bullying. His father disappeared before Edward (not his real name) was born, leaving his mother in extreme poverty and ostracised by some of her family.
Now, this man, who worked as a contractor at a British army base in Kenya, along with 19 other soldiers who served there, have been identified as fathers of children born near the base through a ground-breaking DNA and legal process.
Paternity has so far been legally confirmed in 12 of these cases by the UK’s highest Family Court judge, as revealed by a BBC World Service investigation.
This process offers answers to children who did not know where, or even who, their fathers were in some cases – or who had been led to believe they had died. All of them have been seeking answers about their heritage and have faced financial hardship. Most of the 12 confirmed cases are now eligible to register for British citizenship. Those under 18 or in further education will also be eligible for child support.
UK solicitor James Netto, and Kelvin Kubai, a lawyer identifying clients in Kenya, state there are nearly 100 documented cases of children born near the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk) to British soldiers. Netto believes the actual number could be much higher.
Batuk, established in 1964 and seeing over 5,000 British personnel annually, has been the subject of significant controversy over the decades it has been located in Nanyuki, a market town 185km (115 miles) north of Nairobi.
A two-year Kenyan parliamentary inquiry, published last December, accused British soldiers of operating within a “culture of impunity” at the base, leading to allegations of sexual abuse, two murders, rights violations, environmental destruction, and the abandonment and neglect of local children.
The UK Ministry of Defence responded, stating it “deeply regrets those issues and challenges which have arisen in relation to the UK’s defence presence in Kenya… We continue to take action wherever possible to address them.”
The DNA Breakthrough
James Netto was first alerted to the issue of children seeking their fathers in Nanyuki in 2024. He partnered with leading genetics professor Denise Syndercombe Court, and they arrived in Kenya “armed with a suitcase full of DNA kits.”
They then cross-referenced the DNA samples they gathered with genetic profiles available on commercial genealogy databases to identify the absent British military fathers of clients ranging from three to 70 years old.
“Nothing like this has ever been done before, where you’re engaging DNA testing on such a scale” in the UK courts, Netto stated. He and his team have a vast pool of genetic information for comparison. By last year, almost 30 million profiles were available on Ancestry.com, the largest commercial DNA website, which Syndercombe Court joined and used as their primary source.
Netto mentioned they had no idea how many leads they would uncover and were astonished by the positive results. “We had completely distant family members, relatively close family members, all the way up to the bullseye hit of fathers being named and identified.”
This breakthrough is potentially life-changing for Edward and his mother Nasibo, as he will now be entitled to financial support from his father.
The Human Stories
“I used to think they were gentlemen,” Nasibo said of the British military. She believed Edward’s father truly loved and cared for her. A letter from the soldier’s mother to Nasibo, written before she became pregnant, thanked her for making her son so happy. When Nasibo told him she was expecting, she says he seemed delighted, urging her to name the child after his brother if it was a boy, and returned from a trip to the UK with an engagement ring.
However, when Nasibo was four months pregnant, she says he told her he had to return to the UK for an emergency and subsequently cut all contact.
Nasibo was forced by some relatives to leave the family home, she says, and her son was bullied at school for his lighter skin.
“They nickname him ‘the British coloniser’,” she told us. The UK governed Kenya from 1895 to 1963.
Netto located Edward’s father after the court directed the Ministry of Defence, Department for Work and Pensions, and HM Revenue and Customs to share the man’s name and address. The man has asked Netto not to share his contact details with Nasibo or their son, but the lawyer is now initiating court proceedings to compel him to pay child maintenance.
Another Kenyan, 18-year-old Yvonne, knew even less about her father than Edward. She had been told he served in the British military but did not have his name and grew up believing he was dead. Her mother died when Yvonne was a baby, and soldiers at Batuk allegedly told her grandparents that her father had passed away.
The legal project revealed, through a match with the man’s mother’s cousin whose DNA was uploaded to Ancestry.com, that her father is, in fact, alive and living in the UK.
After breaching five court orders, he eventually attended his case hearing. He requested a DNA test to confirm paternity, and the results a week later confirmed he was Yvonne’s father.
He currently does not wish to have contact with Yvonne. However, his mother’s cousin expressed eagerness to meet Yvonne.
Not all identified fathers have been reluctant to engage.
Phill, a former British soldier stationed in Nanyuki in 2004, says he is enjoying getting to know his 20-year-old daughter, Cathy. He had previously proposed to Cathy’s mother, Maggie, and spent significant time with his daughter during her first few months. However, when he moved to another deployment, he claims his phone was stolen, and he lost their contact details.
Maggie found it easier to tell Cathy her father was dead. But as Cathy grew older, she discovered he was alive and tried messaging him on Facebook. He says he blocked her accounts, not recognising them.
At that time, he says, he had left the Army and was, for a period, homeless and struggling with his mental health. “Transitioning into civilian life wasn’t easy,” he stated.
Cathy was also struggling at the time, which culminated in an attempt to take her own life.
“Growing up, I felt like I really needed a father figure because there are some things my mom couldn’t understand due to race and other factors. It made me feel really lonely.”
“There’s a part of you that you don’t know about. It’s like a complete mystery to you.”
With his paternity recently confirmed in the UK courts, Phill says he is glad to have been found, describing it as a “very happy surprise.”
He says he is in touch with Cathy and is already providing her and Maggie with some financial support.
“I told Cathy… it doesn’t matter what I do, I can never make up for the amount of time that I’ve lost with her. But all I can do is to do the best that I can.”
Cathy is now hoping to visit the UK.
Netto states that, to his knowledge, Phill is the only one of his clients’ fathers so far to be sending money to their children.
We asked local Kenyan lawyer Kelvin Kubai, who established a charity called Connecting Roots Kenya to financially support children of British soldiers, if he believed there should be a blanket ban on such relationships, given the number of children born out of wedlock. He firmly disagreed.
“This would be very racist in nature because you are asking predominantly white soldiers to avoid black women just because they may bring them trouble. The only feasible solution is to ensure that these men are held accountable when they father children during their training duration in Kenya.”
Netto and Kubai’s work is ongoing, they say, with more cases expected to be brought before the High Court in the coming months.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) stated prior to our publication: “Where a criminal accusation of unlawful activity against UK Service Personnel does not exist, and no specific concerns have been raised by local police, then the UK MoD would not investigate. Some of the paternity claims may relate to consensual relationships, which are not against UK MoD policy.”
Brigadier Simon Ridgway, commanding officer of the Collective Training Group which delivers British Army training, added that those affected by paternity issues should engage with the Kenyan national children’s service. “They then engage with the UK, and we then provide whatever support in terms of answering questions and dealing with those allegations as they come in.”
Since our publication, the MoD issued an additional statement, expressing that it is “deeply concerned by the allegations regarding children left without appropriate support.”
“Any service personnel found to have failed in their responsibilities are expected to take responsibility for their actions,” it added. “Sexual exploitation or the abandonment of parental obligations is unacceptable.”
December’s Kenyan parliamentary inquiry called on the Nairobi government to implement new mechanisms “to hold Batuk soldiers accountable for child support to children born out of consensual relations, including DNA-testing and psychosocial support for children fathered by Batuk soldiers.”
Update 20 April 13:00: Subsequent to our publication, the MoD issued a statement expressing “deep concern” over allegations of children left without support, and stating that “abandonment of parental obligations is unacceptable.”
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