A baby stolen in South Africa 17 years ago found

Celeste Nurse, in red, and her husband, Morné, far left, leave court in Cape Town after the woman accused of kidnapping their daughter 17 years ago was remanded in custody for a week.
Photo: AP

A baby stolen from her sleeping mother’s arms shortly after birth has been found by the family through an astonishing coincidence 17 years later, her biological family and South African police said Friday.

A 50-year-old woman has been arrested and charged with kidnapping after pupils noticed a remarkable likeness between the 17-year-old and her younger biological sister who started attending the same school this year.

DNA tests have confirmed that the older girl is the daughter of Celeste and Morne Nurse, who was snatched from Groote Schuur hospital as a three-day-old baby named Zephany in April 1997, local media reported.

The parents, who later had three more children, have celebrated Zephany’s birthday every year since she was kidnapped, never giving up hope that their first-born would come back to them one day, her father Morne said.

Zephany grew up with a different name in a different family.

But last month her biological sister, Cassidy Nurse, started high school at the same school as Zephany, and fellow pupils noticed the startling resemblance she bore to a final-year student.

When Cassidy told her parents about the girl, the father approached Zephany at the school. When he saw the striking resemblance between the girls, he contacted the police.

Without knowing it, the Nurse family had been living within a couple of kilometres of their kidnapped daughter.

“All the time she has been right under my nose,” the father told South Africa’s Talk radio 702. “It was seriously heartbreaking”.

“She told me that her hangout at weekends was mainly the place where we went to, which was shocking”.

“Emotions are running very high in my family, it’s actually good emotions,” said Nurse.

Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel André Traut confirmed that a woman had been arrested. She and her husband, who is also in his fifties, have no other children.

“The suspect is being charged with kidnapping, fraud and contravening sections… of the Children’s Act, in that she fraudulently pretended that she was the biological mother of a child,” Traut said.

“The kidnapped girl has since been placed in the care of the Department of Social Services of the Western Cape Government.”

On how Zephany has reacted on discovering her biological family, Nurse said “she is actually very happy about it, at the same time highly disappointed in the family (that has raised her)”