Turkish conjoined twins return after successful op in UK
TURKISH conjoined twin brothers Yiğit and Derman came back to Turkey on Wednesday after more than six months of medical operations and healing in London to separate them.
The two-year-old twins — who were born with their heads joined to each other — were taken back to Turkey in an air ambulance sent by the Turkish Health Ministry.
Yiğit and Derman, sons of Turkish couple Fatma and Ömer Evrensel, were sent to London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital for the rare operation by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and First Lady Emine Erdoğan last December.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency before leaving for Turkey, Ömer Evrensel said: “This operation could not be performed in Turkey . . . President Erdoğan and his wife Emine Erdoğan helped us to come here.”
He said the first lady first visited them when they were in İstanbul in search of a hospital that could perform the procedure and “showed great care in our children’s condition.”
“Then we were taken to London with special orders from the presidency after the London hospital and surgeons agreed to the operation.”
Evrensel said the operation was performed by Noor Ul Owase Jeelani, a pediatric neurosurgeon of Kashmiri background and craniofacial surgeon David Dunaway in one of Britain’s largest children’s hospitals.
“We are happy to be able to go back to Turkey with healthy children,” said father Evrensel.
He said they, as the boys’ parents, had never fallen into despair and that God helped them.
Evrensel recounted that they had been asked to abort the pregnancy before the birth once the twins’ condition became clear but
“we never agreed to that as they were given to us by Allah.”
“We were ready to live with that condition, but Allah showed us a path, gave us a remedy — we are thankful.”
Yiğit and Derman were born on June 21, 2018, and will celebrate their second birthday later this month.