Hassanatu and Hussainatu Jalloh were born on 11 September 2019 in Freetown, Sierra Leone, part of a triplet pregnancy. They were omphalopagus twins—joined at the abdomen and lower chest, sharing a liver and the lining of the pericardium. Their brother, Chernor Alpha, died weeks later of a fever.

Their parents, Isatu and Alusine Jalloh, were told Sierra Leone could not separate them. With help from the Sierra Leonean government, diaspora advocates, and a nurse at Columbia, the family reached NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in December 2019. The girls were too small. A nutritional plan doubled their weight. Tissue expanders were placed in the abdominal wall for about six weeks so there would be skin to close two bodies.

On 21 February 2020 a team of more than 30—led in published accounts by pediatric surgeon Vincent Duron and transplant surgeon Tomoaki Kato—operated for about nine hours. They divided the shared liver and abdominal structures. At the moment of separation the girls were moved onto two gurneys: the first time they had occupied separate space. Hospital staff had nicknamed them Maggie and Chelsea for privacy.

Recovery was not identical. One twin had been weaker from birth; the other had helped sustain her. Both lived. Follow-up from the hospital and TODAY in late 2021 showed them meeting milestones, smiling, and playing on a mat—the same later photographs that circulate with the Spanish caption. The operation finished days before New York’s COVID-19 surge closed much of the city around them.

Omphalopagus twins are among the more separable forms of conjoined birth if the liver can be split and each child has enough bowel and vessels. Most conjoined twins do not survive; of those who reach an operating room, many still do not. Hassanatu and Hussainatu did. Two cribs replaced one.

Sources

• Columbia University Irving Medical Center / NewYork-Presbyterian: “Inside the Successful Separation Surgery of Conjoined Twins”
• TODAY, December 2021 follow-up
• Sierra Leone Embassy / Calabash Newspaper: travel, government support, February 2020 surgery
• Drs. Vincent Duron and Tomoaki Kato, NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia