Could all humans really just be one race?

Shocking miracle; Black African couple gave birth to a white baby.

Blue-eyed blonde Nmachi, whose name means “Beauty of God” in the Nigerian couple’s homeland, has baffled genetics experts because neither Ben nor wife Angela have any mixed-race family history.

Pale genes skipping generations before cropping up again could have explained the baby’s appearance. Ben also stressed: “My wife is true to me. Even if she hadn’t been, the baby still wouldn't look like that.

“We both just sat there after the birth staring at her for ages – not saying anything.” Doctors at Queen Mary’s Hospital in Sidcup – where Angela, from nearby Woolwich, gave birth – have told the parents Nmachi is definitely no albino.

Ben, who came to Britain with his wife five years ago and works for South Eastern Trains, said: “She doesn’t look like an albino child anyway – not like the ones I’ve seen back in Nigeria or in books.

She just looks like a healthy white baby.” “But we don’t know of any white ancestry. We wondered if it was a genetic twist. “But even then, what is with the long curly blonde hair?” Professor Bryan Sykes, head of Human Genetics at Oxford University and Britain’s leading expert, yesterday called the birth “extraordinary”.

He said: “In mixed race humans, the lighter variant of skin tone may come out in a child – and this can sometimes be startlingly different to the skin of the parents.“This might be the case where there is a lot of genetic mixing, as in Afro-Caribbean populations.

But in Nigeria there is little mixing.” Prof Sykes said BOTH parents would have needed “some form of white ancestry” for a pale version of their genes to be passed on. But he added: “The hair is extremely unusual. Even many blonde children don’t have blonde hair like this at birth.” The expert said some unknown mutation was the most likely explanation.

He admitted: “The rules of genetics are complex and we still don’t understand what happens in many cases.”“All that matters is that she’s healthy and that we love her. She’s a proud British Nigerian.”

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