The children of British soldiers left behind in Kenya are now tracing their fathers
The Children of British Soldiers Left Behind in Kenya
Margaret Wandia became pregnant after a short relationship with a British soldier who was training near her village in Kenya. They met when she was in her early 20s and working at a bar. After a week, the soldier left, and Wandia was left to raise their biracial son alone. Today, her son, now 26, is part of a legal effort led by a Kenyan lawyer to help such children find their fathers and seek support from British authorities.
This is part of a larger issue, as human rights groups have tried for years to hold the British military accountable for allegations of sexual assault and abandonment of children during their training in Kenya. The British military trains up to 10,000 soldiers in Kenya each year under a $44 million defense agreement renewed in 2021.
Wandia’s son, Louis Gitonga, has struggled with his identity. In conservative Kenyan society, he has faced discrimination for being “too white.” Gitonga says he feels excluded from education and job opportunities and has battled alcoholism. “People call me a white man or albino, and it hurts me deeply,” he said.
His mother remembers being charged higher school fees because of his light skin. She later married a local farmer, Paul Wachira, who admitted it was challenging to raise a biracial child. “Sometimes, I had to hide him during family gatherings because he looked so different from his siblings,” Wachira said.
Lawyer Kelvin Kubai represents ten children of British soldiers and hopes to take them to Britain to seek citizenship and financial support. Not all of these relationships were consensual, and Kubai is collaborating with a British law firm to pursue legal action. Seven of the children he represents are under 18, making them eligible for British citizenship. He has also raised $4,600 to conduct DNA tests to identify their fathers.
The identity crisis affects mostly children of white British fathers. According to Kubai, children of Black British fathers may not face the same discrimination and are harder to identify. The British High Commission claims to work with local child support services on paternity cases, but many Kenyan mothers say they receive little help.
One such mother, Jenerica Namoru, has a 5-year-old son with a British soldier. While the father initially accepted the child and signed the birth certificate, he later stopped providing financial support. Namoru sought help from the British Army Training Unit in Kenya but was turned away. She is now represented by Kubai.
The issue of biracial children in Kenya dates back to the 1960s, during British colonial rule. Older children from those times are also seeking justice. David Mwangi Macharia, 68, known as “British” because of his light skin, dropped out of school due to bullying and now works as a night guard and mason. He says he struggles to fit in, even with his own family.
Efforts to hold the British military accountable have largely failed. The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) has documented over 200 rape cases involving British troops between 1983 and 2003. However, a 2007 investigation by the Royal Military Police dismissed the cases as “not genuine,” and no compensation was given.
Marion Mutugi, a KNCHR commissioner, says investigations are often blocked by local authorities who intimidate human rights defenders. “They put a Band-Aid on a wound instead of addressing the root cause,” she said.
The most well-known case is that of Agnes Wanjiru, who was killed in 2012 after spending time with British soldiers. In 2019, an inquest found that British soldiers were responsible for her murder, but no one has been charged. A public hearing by Kenya’s parliament in 2023 has reopened investigations into the case.
