Iranian co-joined twins return in separate coffins

The bodies of the co-joined twins who died in the operation that separated them returned to Iran today to be buried.

Friends wept and a military band played solemnly as the coffins of Ladan and Laleh Bijani were carried off a plane from Singapore.

The twins died on Tuesday during a marathon operation to separate their heads and brains.

About 60 friends and government officials, led by the head of the State Welfare Organisation Mohammad Reza Rahchamani, were at the airport in the capital Tehran to receive them.

The coffins of the 29-year-old twins, who realised their ambition to be separated only in death, were taken to the city’s Grand Mosque.

Hundreds of people were expected to pay their respects to the twins in the mosque before the coffins are flown to Shiraz, southern Iran, early tomorrow.

They will be buried in Lohrasb, the village where they were born in south-western Iran, later that day.

Their parents, Dadollah Bijani and Maryam Safariwere, were said to be in Firouzabad, a town close to Lohrasb, today.

The twins, who spent years looking for surgeons who would try to separate them, left Iran seven months ago to prepare for the operation.

They made many friends in Singapore, where more than 400 people said prayers for them yesterday at a mosque in the city-state.

It was the first time surgeons had tried to separate adults joined at the head. The surgery had been performed successfully on infants, whose brains can more easily recover.