Nelson Mandela, the Former South African president, may have fathered an illegitimate daughter following a brief affair with a woman he met in Cape Town, in 1945, his foundation has admitted.

Mpho Pule spent almost 12 years battling to see the man she believed was her father but died just a month before his office wrote to say that they were close to confirming her claim.

Now her children are continuing her fight to be recognised as the seventh child fathered by the former apartheid-era freedom fighter.

Verne Harris, a spokesman for the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said yesterday that Mrs Pule's claim matched the documentary record of his life, but stressed that only a DNA test would provide absolute confirmation....