No, they're still alive and not from Iran. Rather, they are from the US city of New Germany, Minnesota.
Yes and sorry I mistaken with them
Ladan Bijani and
Laleh Bijani (in
Persian: لادن و لاله بیژنی) (January 17, 1974 – July 8, 2003) were
Iranian law graduates. They were
conjoined twin sisters, joined at the head, who died after their complicated
surgical separation. Coincidentally, the twins were born 100 years to the day of the deaths of
Chang and Eng Bunker, also conjoined twins, famously known as the "original" Siamese twins.
Separation[edit]
In 1996, they traveled to
Germany, trying to convince doctors there to separate them; the German doctors however declined to operate, saying that the risk of separation surgery would be too high for both of them.
In November 2002, after meeting Dr.
Keith Goh, a
Singaporean neurosurgeon who successfully separated the Shrestha sisters from Nepal (Ganga and Jamuna), who had previously also been joined at the head, the Bijani sisters travelled to Singapore to undergo the controversial operation. Even though they were warned by the doctors that the surgery to separate them would still be very risky, the sisters were very determined. Their decision to go ahead with the operation caused an international media blitz.
After seven months in the Southeast Asian country doing extensive
psychiatric and legal evaluations, they underwent surgery on July 6, 2003, under the care of a large team of international specialists at
Raffles Hospital, composed of 28 surgeons (including neurosurgeon
Ben Carson) and more than 100 support staff working in shifts. A specially-designed chair was required that allowed the operation to be performed with both sisters in a sitting position.
The attempt to separate the twins turned out to be very difficult, because their
brains not only shared a major
vein (the
superior sagittal sinus), but had fused together. The separation was achieved on July 8, 2003, but it was announced then that the twins were in critical condition, both having lost a large volume of
blood due to complications of the operation.
The separation stage of the surgery completed at 13:30 (Singapore time,
UTC +8), but there was significant blood loss during the blood vessel repairing process, and Ladan Bijani died at around 14:30 on the operating table; her sister Laleh died a short time afterwards at 16:00. The deaths were announced by the chairman of Raffles Hospital, Dr.
Loo Choon Yong.
Burials
The sisters were buried in accordance to
Shiite Muslim traditions in separate
tombs, side by side, in
Lohrasb. The sisters willed their property to blind and orphaned children.
A documentary about the operation was broadcast soon after. Later, people named January 17 as Hope's day.