Nima and Dawa Pelden were born by caesarean section on 13 July 2017 in Bhutan. Scans had shown twins. They had not shown that the girls were joined at the lower chest and abdomen, facing each other, with a shared liver. Bhutan had one paediatrician who could not separate them. In October 2018 their mother, Bhumchu Zangmo, flew with them to Melbourne. Children First Foundation paid the journey. Victoria paid the hospital bill, estimated in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. They waited at the foundation’s Kilmore retreat until nutrition was adequate; an October date slipped. On 9 November 2018, at 15 months old, Dr Joe Crameri led about 18 people through a six-hour operation at the Royal Children’s Hospital. Dr Karma Sherub, Bhutan’s paediatric surgeon, stood in the room as translator and witness. The liver was divided. Two abdominal walls were closed. Crameri said there were no highs and no lows — only calm. Neither child went to intensive care.

They went home. By 2024 they were seven, in Year 2, walking hand in hand. Their mother said they asked if she needed help.

The Spanish caption’s “complete shared lower abdominal structures” overstates a joined liver and torso. The rest is on the record: a Himalayan village, an Australian public hospital, a charity ticket, and two girls who no longer had to face only each other.

Sources: The Guardian and Sydney Morning Herald, 9 November 2018; CNN; Children First Foundation / RCH briefings with Dr Joe Crameri; Kids News follow-up on their seventh birthday (2024).