CAPE TOWN – In 2017, conjoined Sengalese twins Marieme and Ndeye Ndiaye weren’t give much of a chance at life, but four years later, they have shown doctors what the true meaning of tenacity is after they’ve settled in perfectly at their new school in Cardiff in the United Kingdom.
According to a report by the BBC, the twins were brought to the UK from Senegal in 2017 by their father Ibrahima for treatment at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.
The conjoined twins who were expected to die within days when they were born, have separate hearts and spines but share a liver, bladder and digestive system, have conditions which put them at higher risk of complications from Covid-19.
According to reports, the father brought the girls to the UK at the age of eight months desperately seeking medical attention.
This was made possible through funding from a charitable foundation run by Senegal's first lady Marieme Faye Sall, before he sought asylum.
According to British newspaper the Guardian, over the past two and a half years, the twins father and the hospital have wrestled with the agonising decision about whether to go ahead with a surgical separation that Marieme would not survive, but that could give Ndeye a chance of a reasonable life.
In 2019, Great Ormond Street surgeons considered attempting separation but it was something Ndiaye did not want because of the risks involved, reported BBC.
According to doctors, the girls' circulatory systems are more closely linked than previously thought and neither would survive without the other, making separation now impossible, writes BBC.
BBC reveals that the girls' head teacher Helen Borley said they were learning well since starting reception in September and had made new friends.
"They are laughing a lot - which is always a good sign, isn't it? Any child that is laughing a lot is a happy child," Borley told the BBC.
African News Agency (ANA); Editing by Naomi Mackay