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A girl who was kidnapped from her parents as a newborn baby has finally returned home 17 years later - after bumping into her identical sister at school.

Zephany Nurse, who is now 17, vanished on April 30, 1997 from Woodstock in South Africa three days after being born.

Police claim she was taken by a woman when her mother fell asleep but her parents Celeste and Morne never lost faith in finding her.

Every year the family celebrated their daughter's birthday on 28th of April, with a cake with her name on it.

In a 2010 interview, the girl's biological father Morne said: "I'll never, ever give up hope. I can feel it in my gut - my daughter is out there and she is going to come home."

In a police report posted at the time they said: "Zephany was only three days old when she was abducted by an unknown coloured female at about 15.30 out of the hospital.

"The unknown female spoke to the mother about the baby and the mother fell asleep, when the nurse came to wake the mother up, Zephany was gone."

(Image: CEN)

And it was a remarkable twist of fate that reunited Zephany with her parents last year.

School pupils started to point out the amazing similarities between Zephany and another girl in a different class.

When her biological parents heard about this, who hadn't given up hope of finding Zephany, they invited her over for tea and were stunned by the resemblance.

When she arrived, the couple were so stunned by her resemblance to their other three daughters they called police - and DNA tests later confirmed their suspicions.

Details of what happened to her in the intervening 17 years remain unclear.

Police said that Zephany grew up with a different name and a different family, never knowing she was not their real daughter.

A 50-year-old woman was arrested in connection with Zephany's disappearance and has appeared in court.

Police added: "The suspect is being charged with kidnapping, fraud and contravening sections 32 (4) (a) and (b) of the Children’s Act – in that she fraudulently pretended that she was the biological mother of a child.

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