Twin Teens Who Were Kidnapped And Separated At Birth Reunite Via TikTok
When raised in a house with your siblings, it's easy for you to become close. You spend all your time around each other, grow up together, and experience milestones and life events together. This is even more true for twins, joined at the hip when they're born and sticking together for years afterward.
There are rare situations in which twins don't get to grow up together, though, separated by things they can't control. One pair of twins learned this recently, and it changed their lives forever.
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Seeing Double
For those who aren't twins, which is most of us, there's still a chance that you have another type of twin, someone out there who looks exactly like you, called a doppelgänger. There have been plenty of cases of people scrolling through social media only to stumble across someone who looks identical to them, a startling yet fascinating experience.
That's exactly what happened to Elene Deisadze when she was on TikTok one day in 2022. She was casually scrolling until she saw a video featuring Ana Panchulidze, a girl who looked extremely similar to her.
An Important Test
She decided to reach out and the two became fast friends. After months of chatting and growing closer, they learned a peculiar detail about their lives that they both shared: they were both adopted, and neither of them knew their biological family.
To get some answers regarding this, they decided to each take a DNA test. The test determined that not only do they look like twins, they are twins, with a history much darker than either of them could have anticipated.
Two Of Many
Their DNA test was arranged in part by a journalist named Tamuna Museridze, who'd been investigating a large kidnapping scheme that happened in her home country of Georgia between 1950 and 2006. She'd learned about this rather frightening issue when she discovered two copies of her own birth certificate, each with different dates, in her mother's house.
"We found out it was systemic, and we found out there are more than 100,000 children stolen in Georgia's hospitals," Museridze told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).
Keeping Them Secret
She then began her investigation and learned that the scheme included not just unknown criminals, but doctors and government officials as well, all working together. The kidnapping often took place in the maternity ward, where doctors would lie to parents and say their newborn children died at birth, then would turn around and sell those children to new families who were unaware of the kidnapping taking place.
Patmani Parkosadze, Ana's adoptive mother, said that she paid thousands to adopt Ana in 2005 after waiting years on an adoption waitlist.
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Little Choice
"I had no clue. At that time, you had to wait ages to adopt somebody. My husband and I were personally waiting for six years before we got Ana," Patmani told the ABC.
"We really had no idea about the corrupt system … and I wouldn't even imagine such a thing."
Elene's adoptive mother, Lia Korkotadze, said that spending that kind of money to adopt a child was seemingly her only option, as "adopting from an orphanage seemed virtually impossible due to incredibly long waiting lists."
The Hunt Is On
Which is why she adopted a six-month old Elene from the hospital for a great fee. She said they brought Elene right to her house, and she had never suspected there was "anything illegal" going on.
Thankfully, both Elene and Ana went to good homes, and are incredibly thankful for their adoptive families. Still, they hope to one day meet their biological parents now that they know the truth about their circumstances.
More Reunions To Come
"Maybe they don't even know we exist because when children were adopted sometimes their biological parents were lied to, [told] your child is dead, maybe our parents think we are dead, we are not even alive, it would be so great to find them and tell them the truth," Elene said.
To help other families who'd been separated by this kidnapping ring find each other, Tamuna started a Facebook group about the topic. It currently has roughly 250,000 and has reunited around 700 families.
A Family's Bond
The story behind what happened to these sisters is shocking and tragic, but there's beauty there, too. The odds of Elene and Ana finding each other were already slim to none, let alone anything else that happened afterward and the work that Tamuna is doing to bring people like them together.
No amount of distance or tragedy can keep a family apart. There's a bond there that's felt before those involved even know they're family, and that's nothing short of magical.
