Advertisement

Dutch men swapped at birth meet 60 years later

Martino Kerremans and Jan Koevoets are seen in this video screengrab. (omroepbrabant.nl/Screengrab)

In 1953, two babies boys born at Ignatius Hospital in the Dutch city of Breda were accidentally sent home with the wrong mothers.

The swapped-at-birth story was only confirmed recently when a DNA test revealed that Martino Kerremans and Jan Koevoets had been raised by each other's biological mothers.

The two men met for the first time Monday evening.

"I can barely believe it," Kerremans told the Telegraph. "First you come to the frightening discovery that your parents have not been your real parents all these years. And you also find your biological family. Incredible."

Kerremans requested the DNA test following his parents' recent deaths. His mother had always half-joked about bringing the wrong baby home from the hospital.

She was right.

A campaign by the local Omroep Brabant newspaper helped Kerremans find his real family. Jan Koevoets' brother, Antoon, saw a photo of Kerremans and thought he looked like him. He urged his brother to take a DNA test, which led to the discovery that Koevoets and Kerremans had been swapped at birth.

"I always made the joke that I was probably the milkman's," he told the Telegraph. "I wish I could still joke but I cannot deny it any more with this result."

He added, "I'm confused, I have another biological family. But my old family is my family."

Koevoets admitted that he was glad the woman he always believed to be his mother had died recently and didn't have to face this news.

"This is something, I'm sure, she would not have wanted to experience. There can be nothing worse for a parent than your child being given to another," he said.

The hospital, which now operates under a different name, offered an apology to the two families.

"Unfortunately, we cannot undo what happened in the maternity ward in early February 1953," said a spokesman. "It is and remains a very sad story."