Conjoined twins Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf from Cork have been successfully separated following a 14 hour operation at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.
"The twins are in intensive care and are sedated but stable. We are pleased with how the operation went," Edward Kiely, consultant paediatric surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital said.
Cork-born Mr Kiely carried out the operation along with a team of up to 30 doctors. Surgery began at 8.30am yesterday on the twins, who were joined at the chest but do not share vital organs.
“The sun is shining today for our two little fighters, who have won the battle of their lives! Words cannot express the relief and love we feel for our two boys, ” the boys' parents Angie and Azzedine Benhaffaf said in a statement this afternoon.
"Words cannot express the relief and love we feel for our two boys. We thank God, we thank the surgeons and the gifted team at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and we thank from the bottom of our hearts the Irish nation and
everyone who prayed for our beloved twins," they said.
"We are so proud of the courage and strength that Hassan and Hussein have shown, and they both have made the world a much better place with them in it."
Dr Kiely said Great Ormond Street Hospital was the most experienced centre in Europe for the management and separation of conjoined twins. Hospital teams had dealt with 21 separations and nine inoperable cases to date.
Dr Kiely said the survival rate at the hospital for planned separations – where the children involved were stable and separation could be carried out at a suitable time – was about 80 per cent, and under these circumstances both twins usually survived and had a good quality of life.
The twins were born in London last December.