Title: 'The selfie that revealed I was a stolen baby' || Godhuli News BD
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In April 1997 a woman dressed in a nurse's uniform walked out of a Cape Town hospital carrying a three-day-old baby taken from the maternity ward as the baby's mother lay sleeping. It was only by chance, 17 years later, that the stolen child discovered her true identity.
It was the first day of term at Zwaanswyk High School in Cape Town and the beginning of Miché Solomon's final year.
And that January day in 2015, 17-year-old Miché was mobbed by other students excitedly telling her about the new girl, Cassidy Nurse, who was three years younger but looked almost identical to her.
Initially, Miché didn't think much of it.
But when the two girls later met in the corridor, Miché says she felt an instant connection she couldn't explain.
"I almost felt like I knew her," she says. "It was so scary - I couldn't understand why I was feeling like this."
Despite the age difference, Miché and Cassidy began spending a lot of time together.
"I would say, 'Hey, baby girl!' And she would say, 'Hey, big sis!'" Miché recalls. "Sometimes I would go to the bathroom with her and say, 'Let me brush your hair, let me fix you up with some lip gloss.'"
When anyone asked Miché and Cassidy if they were sisters they would joke, "We don't know - maybe in another life!"
Then one day the two girls took a selfie together and showed it to their friends. Some asked Miché if she was sure she hadn't been adopted. "No! Don't be crazy!" she insisted.
Then Miché and Cassidy went home and showed their families the picture, too. Lavona, Miché's mother, who called her daughter "Princess" and would take her to the mall and to the movies, commented on how similar the two girls looked.
Michael, Miché's father, said that he recognised his daughter's new friend - Cassidy's father had an electrical store where he sometimes shopped.
But Cassidy's parents, Celeste and Morne Nurse, gazed intensely at the photograph. They told Cassidy they had a question for Miché, and when the two girls next met Cassidy came out with it: "Were you born on 30 April 1997?"
"I said, 'Why? Are you stalking me on Facebook?'" Miché says.
Cassidy assured Miché that she wasn't stalking her, she just wanted to know when Miché had been born. So Miché replied that yes, she had been born on 30 April 1997.
Weeks later, Miché was unexpectedly summoned from her maths lesson to the headmaster's office, where two social workers were waiting. They told Miché a story about a three-day-old baby girl called Zephany Nurse, who had been abducted from Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town 17 years previously and had never been found.
Miché listened to the story unfold, feeling unsure why they were telling her this. Then the social workers explained that there was evidence to suggest that Miché could be the child who had been taken, all those years ago.
To set matters straight, Miché explained that she hadn't been born at the Groote Schuur Hospital - she had been born at the Retreat Hospital, about 20 minutes' drive away. That's what was on her birth certificate, she said. But the social workers replied that there was no record of her being born there.
Still feeling that this must all be some terrible mistake, Miché agreed to a DNA test.
"I had so much belief in the mother who raised me - she would never lie to me, especially about who I am and where I come from," Miché says. "So my mind was made up that the DNA test was going to be negative."
But things did not go as she hoped. The test results came back the following day and proved indisputably that Miché Solomon and Zephany Nurse, the baby snatched from the Groote Schuur Hospital in 1997, were the same person.
"I sat there in shock," Miché says. "My life was out of control."
The story of the stolen baby, now a young woman on the brink of adulthood, being found quite by chance almost two decades later made headlines in South Africa and around the world and Miché's life changed immediately.
She was told that she would be unable to return home - it would be another three months before she would turn 18 and be allowed to make her own decisions. For now she had to stay in a safe house.
Then Miché received more devastating news. Lavona Solomon, the woman she had grown up believing was her mother, had been arrested.
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