Barack Obama’s lost brother appears

When Barack Obama rallies the faithful at the Democratic Convention in Denver next week many of his family will be cheering from the sidelines. One who will not be there, however, is 26-year-old George Hussein Onyango Obama, the Illinois senator's half-brother. For while much has been written about Obama’s colourful lineage, George, who lives in a hut in the shanty town of Huruma on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, surviving on less than a dollar a month, does not appear to be part of the script.

"If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related. I am ashamed," he tells the Italian version of the magazine Vanity Fair, who tracked him down for a feature on the Democratic nominee. He is not ashamed of Obama, it should be pointed out, but the fact that his half-brother is running for the American presidency while he lives in abject penury embarrasses him.

Senator Obama was born in Hawaii to Ann Dunham, who had married a student she met at university on the islands, Barack Obama Sr. However, he abandoned the family when his son was two years old and eventually returned to Kenya where he fathered George. He was killed in a car crash in 1982. George was born to a different mother, known only as Jael.

It seems that the Senator and George have met on two occasions – in his memoirs, Obama describes him as a "beautiful boy with a rounded head" - first when he was five and then during a visit to Kenya in 2006. Of the second meeting, George says: "It was very brief, we spoke for just a few minutes. It was like meeting a complete stranger."