IRAN: Iranian twins Ladan and Laleh Bijani, joined in life, arrived in their homeland in two coffins yesterday, achieving their dream of separation only in death.
Only around a dozen close friends, and neither their natural nor adoptive parents, were at the airport to meet the coffins, which were draped in a traditional Iranian nomadic red-patterned cloth with a bouquet of white flowers tied with a black ribbon.
"They were tired of being joined together," said Ms Nooshin Mehran, who described herself as the twins' best friend.
"Now they are dead their biggest wish has come true. I don't regret not trying to change their minds."
A Muslim cleric said prayers over the coffins. A police band played a funeral march as the bodies were taken by ambulance to the coroner's office for a death certificate before being flown to southern Iran for burial.
The funeral will be held today in the village where the sisters were born near the city of Shiraz. President Mohammad Khatami sent a message of condolence.
Iran plans a national ceremony in honour of the twins next week and has expressed sadness over the deaths but no anger, despite some medical experts saying the surgery was too risky, and criticising the haste and motives behind it.
"The Health Ministry and Iranian medical teams did not want to send them to Singapore. They went of their own free will," said Mr Mohammad Reza Rahchamani, head of Iran's Welfare Organisation. - (Reuters)