Women to Remember

Laleh and Ladan Bijani

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At their June 2003 news conference, the Bijanis explained how, despite having lived every moment of their lives together, they had developed divergent interests.

Trained in Iran as lawyers, the sisters hoped to pursue individual careers after a recovery from surgery. While Ladan Bijani said she planned to continue in law, Laleh Bijani said she hoped to become a journalist.

Laleh liked computer games, newspapers and books. Ladan like to chat on the Internet, read the Koran and pray. But one desire remained foremost, they told reporters at their news conference last month. "We want to see each other - face to face," Laleh said.

They wanted to look each other in the eye, they said, then pursue independent lives. So Ladan and Laleh Bijani, the 29-year-old Iranian twins who were born joined at the head, asked doctors here to go ahead with an unprecedented operation to separate them. But ultimately, neither survived the separation.

Amidst all of the pros and cons of this elective operation, testing showed the sisters had high intracranial pressure, which, if untreated, could cause frequent debilitating migraines and impaired vision as well as deteriorating brain function, the hospital said. It was their choice. Our hats are off to these two courageous and beautiful women.

Here is a mini biography by - Wikipedia, the free the online encyclopedia.


Ladan and Laleh Bijani (January 17, 1974 - July 8, 2003) were Iranian law graduates. They were conjoined twin sisters, joined at the head, who died soon after surgical separation. They were born in Shiraz, a city in southwest Iran, to Dadollah Bijani and Maryam Safari, members of a farming family from Lohrasb who had 11 children. It is unclear whether the twins were born or the family ever lived in Firouzabad, which is in southern Iran.

The Bijani sisters were lost in the hospital in 1979 after the doctors responsible for them fled back to the United States during the Islamic revolution. The Bijanis' parents did not find the sisters again until several years later in Karaj, where Dr. Alireza Safaian found and adopted them. Even though Dadollah Bijani won the custody against Safaian, the sisters chose to spend their childhood with Safaian.

They studied law for four years at Tehran University. They faced some difficulties because of their conjoined nature. Since they had to study together, they needed to choose a common career path. Ladan wanted to be a lawyer, while Laleh wished to become a journalist; in the end, they settled on Ladan's choice. Most other personal decisions also had to meet each other's approval. For these and other reasons, they had wanted to be separated since they were youngsters.

Laleh hoped that she could then move to Tehran, the capital city of Iran, to study journalism, while her sister continued with a graduate studies in law and then move to Shiraz. In addition, the sisters had different hobbies. While Laleh liked to, among other things, play computer games, Ladan preferred computer programming. Ladan also described her sister as more introverted and herself quite talkative.

In 1996, they travelled to Germany, trying to get 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 (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 that the surgery to separate them would still be very risky by the doctors, the sisters were very determined.

Their decision to go ahead with the operation caused a media blitz internationally. After seven months in the Southeast Asian country doing extensive psychiatric and legal evaluations, they went to the operating table on July 6, 2003, under the care of a large team of international specialists at Raffles Hospital, composed of 24 surgeons and more than 100 support staff working in shifts. 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. 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.

Last known links:
Pre-Op Video Clip
Dream Of Separate Lives Ends
Twins' Coffins Return to Iran
Til Death Do Us Part
Separate Iranian Sisters Joined At The Head For 28 Years
Iranian twins die as separation fails

 

Laleh and Ladan Bijani - 1989	Laleh and Ladan Bijani - 1990	Laleh and Ladan Bijani - 2003
	Conjoined Korean twins Min Sa-Rang, left, and Min Ji-Hye are held by Iranian twins Ladan and Laleh Bijani on July 4, 2003. The Iranian Bijani conjoined twins died on July 8 during a separation surgery.