Rabeya and Rokaiya, a pair of Bangladeshi Siamese twins conjoined at the head who were successfully separated by a team of Hungarian doctors in 2019, have returned to their hometown after two years, the Foundation for Defenceless People said on Monday.
After their separation in August 2019, the twins lived with their parents and sister for 18 months at the Dhaka Central Military Hospital.
For both children, a minor plastic restorative intervention on the soft tissues is expected to be performed by the foundation’s plastic surgeons in a year’s time.
Rokaiya and Rabeya were separated in a 33-hour operation organised by the Foundation for Defenceless People in August 2019 in Dhaka, Bangladesh, in what was the third step of a series of procedures dubbed “Operation Freedom”. The first phase, including groundbreaking work to separate the blood flow of the brains, was conducted by a Hungarian team led by István Hudák in Bangladesh in August 2018. Preparatory surgery to separate the twins was performed in Hungary in January 2019. The marathon operation in Dhaka in August was carried out by a team of 35 Hungarian doctors and assistants led by neurosurgeon András Csókay from Budapest’s Honvéd Hospital.
featured image: Rabeya and Rokaiya after the operation; via Foundation for Defenceless People
