First picture of conjoined orphan twins separated after 'miracle' 29-hour operation

An orphaned pair of conjoined Bangladeshi twins are recovering well following a groundbreaking operation this week to separate them.
Pictured today lying in separate beds, the girls' guardian, charity worker Moira Kelly, stretched her arms wide to hold each of their hands.
'I always prayed this day would come,' she said.

'They are in two cots and I was standing in the middle of them, which is something I've never done before - it's amazing.'

Just hours after the operation, Trishna was conscious and talking, and today was almost ready to leave intensive care. Her sister Krishna, who was put into a medically-induced coma, is expected to wake up later today.
Doctors said they were ecstatic at the girls' progress and admitted they were still 'coming down' after the elation they felt at the end of the 29-hour surgery.


Trishna (l) has already woken up and was strong enough to cuddle Miss Kelly


Krishna is still in a medically-induced coma, but is due to wake up later today
Neurosurgeon Wirginia Maixner said: 'I'm looking at one bed and then I'm looking at another and thinking "amazing".
'To have struggled for so long, to have worked so hard for what was not just that day, what was a whole two years of work, to be able to say: "I think we've done it..."'

'Long-term, after seeing the scans I think they will be fine. It's all looking really good.


Marathon: The 29-hour surgery took 11 hours longer than expected and involved a team of 16 surgeons, as well as anaesthetists and nurses working around the clock in rotation

Trishna we allowed to wake up overnight and she looks brilliant. She's talking, she's being Trishna, she's behaving the way she always has done,' she said, adding that Krishna's recovery was likely to be a little more 'stormy'.
'We will begin to wake her up later today but it will be a slow wake-up. Krishna still has to adjust to her new way of being and how long it will take her to do that is hard to estimate.
'Certainly there's a period of readjustment and that's something as a medical team we are very much aware of. We will certainly provide support for the girls as we ease them into this new life that we've created.'
The twins, who celebrate their third birthdays next month, were joined at the head and were moved to Australia in 2007 from an orphanage in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by Miss Kelly, a charity worker, and the Children First Foundation.
They were said to be close to death when they first arrived in the country and had been given a 25 per cent chance that one of the sisters would die, and a 50 per cent chance of the girls suffering brain damage.