Children born near army base learn truth about UK soldier dads
“Edward”, a nine-year-old Kenyan boy, was always aware that his father worked for the British army. The boy’s lighter skin color than his peers led to years of bullying. His father disappeared before Edward [not his real name] He was born shunned by some of his family, leaving his mother in extreme poverty.
Now, the man, who worked as a contractor at a British military base in Kenya, and 19 others who served as soldiers there have been identified and traced as the fathers of children born near the base through a groundbreaking DNA and legal process. Paternity has been legally confirmed by the UK’s highest Family Court judge in 12 of the cases so far.
The process provides answers to children who do not know where their father is, or in some cases even who he is, or are led to believe they are dead. They are all searching for answers about their inheritances and facing financial difficulties. Most of the 12 confirmed cases are now eligible to register for British citizenship. Those who are under the age of 18 or in further education will be eligible to receive alimony.
British lawyer James Netto and Kenyan lawyer Kelvin Kubai say there are about 100 documented cases of children born to British soldiers near the British Army Training Unit in Kenya (Batuk). Netto believes there can be much more.
James Netto (standing) went to Kenya to investigate paternity cases [BBC]
Founded in 1964 and passed by more than 5,000 British personnel each year, Batuk has attracted considerable controversy over the decades it has been located in Nanyuki, a market town 185 km (115 miles) north of Nairobi.
The two-year Kenyan parliamentary inquiry, published last December, found British soldiers operates within a “culture of impunity” at the grassrootsresulting in sexual abuse, two alleged murders, rights violations, environmental destruction, and the abandonment and neglect of local children.
The UK Ministry of Defense responded by saying it “deeply regrets the issues and challenges that have arisen in relation to the UK’s defense presence in Kenya… We continue to take action wherever possible to resolve these.”
James Netto was first warned about children searching for their father in Nanyuki in 2024. He teamed up with leading genetics professor Denise Syndercombe Court and arrived in Kenya “with a suitcase full of DNA kits”.
They then cross-referenced the DNA samples they collected with genetic profiles that could be viewed in commercial genealogy databases to find the British military fathers of clients aged three to 70.
“Nothing like this has ever been done before in UK courts, where DNA testing has been done on such a large scale,” says Netto. He and his team have a huge pool of genetic information against which they can compare their samples. As of last year, there were almost 30 million profiles available on Ancestry.com, the largest of the commercial DNA websites that Syndercombe Court participates in and uses as its primary source.
Netto says they had no idea how many leads they would get and were amazed by the good results. “We had completely distant family members, relatively close family members, until the fathers were named and identified.”
This breakthrough is potentially life-changing for Edward and his mother, Nasibo, as he will now be eligible for financial support from his father.
Nasibo faced financial difficulties as many of her relatives ostracized her for being a single mother [BBC]
“I thought they were gentlemen,” Nasibo says of the British army. He believed that Edward’s father truly loved and cared for him. We saw a letter that the soldier’s mother wrote to Nasibo before she got pregnant, thanking him for making her son so happy. He says she looked very pleased when Nasibo told him she was expecting a baby. If it’s a boy, she says, she wants the child to be named after her sister, and she returned from her trip to the UK with an engagement ring.
But she says Nasibo told her when she was four months pregnant that she had to return to the UK due to an emergency and that she had to cut off all contact.
She says Nasibo was forced to leave the family home by some relatives and that her son was bullied at school because of his light skin.
“They called him the ‘British colonialist,’” he told us. The United Kingdom governed Kenya from 1895 to 1963.
Netto managed to find Edward’s father after the court ordered the Ministry of Defence, Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs to share the man’s name and address. The man asked Netto not to share his contact information with Nasibo or his sons, but the lawyer is now in the process of initiating court proceedings to force him to pay child support.
Another Kenyan, 18-year-old Yvonne, knew even less about her father than Edward. She had been told he was serving in the British army, but had not given him a name and had grown up believing he was dead. His mother died when he was a baby, and soldiers in Batuk allegedly told his grandparents that his father had died.
The legal project revealed, through a match with the man’s mother’s cousin whose DNA was uploaded to Ancestry.com, that his father was in fact alive and living in the United Kingdom.
After violating five court orders, he finally attended the hearing on the day his case was heard. He requested a DNA test to confirm that he was Yvonne’s father, and a week later the result showed that this was the case.
He does not want to have contact with Yvonne at this time. But her mother’s cousin says she is dying to meet Yvonne.
Not all identified fathers are reluctant to participate.
Phill, a former British soldier who served in Nanyuki in 2004, said he enjoyed getting to know his 20-year-old daughter Cathy. He had previously proposed to Cathy’s mother, Maggie, and spent a lot of time with her daughter during the first few months of their baby’s life. However, when he moved to another assignment, he said his phone was stolen and he lost his contact information.
Maggie thought it was easier to tell Cathy that her father was dead. However, as Cathy grew older, she discovered that he was alive and tried to message him on Facebook, but he said he did not recognize her accounts and blocked her.
Cathy spent years desperately trying to contact her father through Facebook. [BBC]
At this point, he says, he left the military and was homeless for a time, struggling with his mental health. “The transition to civilian life was not easy,” he says.
Cathy was also struggling at the time, resulting in an attempt to take her own life.
“Growing up, I really felt like I needed a father figure because there were some things my mom couldn’t understand because of race and so on. It made me feel really alone.”
“There’s a part of you that you don’t know about. Like it’s a complete mystery to you.”
After his paternity was recently confirmed in the UK courts, Phill said he was delighted it had been found, describing it as a “very happy surprise”.
He says he’s been in contact with Cathy and is already supporting her and Maggie financially.
“I told Cathy…no matter what I do, I can never make up for the time I lost with her. But all I can do is try my best.”
Cathy now hopes to visit England.
Netto says that as far as he knows, Phill is the only one of his clients’ fathers who sends money to their children.
Phill says he struggled with his mental health after leaving the army [BBC]
We asked local Kenyan lawyer Kelvin Kubai, who founded a charity called Connecting Roots Kenya to provide financial support for the children of British soldiers, if he believes there should be a blanket ban on such relationships, given the number of babies born out of wedlock. He strongly disagreed.
“This [would] be very racist in nature because you ask predominantly white soldiers to stay away from black women [just] because they can bring them trouble. The only… workable solution… [is] Just to make sure these guys are held accountable when they have children during their training in Kenya.”
Netto and Kubai’s work is said to be ongoing and more cases will be filed with the Supreme Court in the next few months.
The Ministry of Defense told us: “Unless a criminal charge of unlawful activity against UK Service Personnel exists and no specific concerns have been raised by local police, the UK Ministry of Defense will not investigate. Some of the allegations of paternity may relate to consensual relationships and this is not contrary to UK Ministry of Defense policy.”
Brigadier Simon Ridgway, commander of the British Army training Collective Training Group, added that those affected by paternity issues should join Kenya’s national children’s services. “They then contact the UK and we provide every support in answering questions and addressing these allegations as they arise.”
A Kenyan parliamentary inquiry in December had called on the Nairobi government to implement new mechanisms “to hold Batuk soldiers accountable for providing child support to children born from consensual relationships, including DNA testing and psychosocial support for children fathered by Batuk soldiers.”
