'Miracle baby' home raid in Kenya

Children's charities fear a child-trafficking operation

Police have seized 10 children for DNA testing from the Kenyan home of UK-based evangelist Gilbert Deya.

A total of 21 children are now being held by Kenyan police investigating a suspected child-trafficking ring.

Archbishop Deya, whose wife is being questioned, says he can create "miracle babies" for childless couples by exorcising demons to make them fertile.

But some charities say his actions are a front for trafficking babies from Kenya to the UK.

The children, aged between five weeks and 11 years, were found locked in the house of Archbishop Deya on Friday morning in the capital Nairobi.

They will stay in protective custody until DNA results reveal the identities of their parents, police spokesman Jaspher Ombati said.

''The wife of the evangelist Gilbert Deya, Mary, has been taken in for questioning by the CID together with two other women and they might or might not be released depending on the answers they give," he told the BBC.

Arrests

Meanwhile, three women have come forward claiming to be the mothers of three of the babies seized earlier this week.

They say they identified the children from pictures in the media and police are trying to establish a match through DNA tests.

According to the BBC's Caroline Karobia in Nairobi, two private clinics in Nairobi, where some of the "miracle babies" were said to have been delivered, were closed down on Thursday for operating without licences.

Four nurses were arrested and police are looking for the owner of the clinics, our correspondent says.