Iranian twins returned to village for burial

Bijani returned to the village of their birth for burial today after their quest for separation cost them their lives.

Bijani returned to the village of their birth for burial today after their quest for separation cost them their lives.

The bodies of conjoined Iranian twins Ladan and LalehAchieving their dream only in death, the twins arrived in their homeland in two coffins on Thursday ahead of the burial ceremony, due later in the day.

All the shops in the area around the village of Lohrasb were closed as hundreds of people flocked to pay their last respects to the twins whose bravery and determination to lead separate lives gripped people around the world.

"We are content. They came to us before they went for the operation and they got a letter of consent from us. They went into the operations of their own free will," their father Dadollah Bijani said.

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Their modest mud-brick home was draped in black banners.

"We send our condolences to the Iranian nation on the departure of these two birds, Laleh and Ladan," read one.

Two graves, side by side, awaited the sisters whose dream was to be able to look at each other without using a mirror.

Ladan and Laleh died on Tuesday, 90 minutes apart, from a severe loss of blood as doctors were in the final stages of the marathon operation to separate them in Singapore.

The twins were born into a poor farming family 29 years ago and were kept in a hospital in the provincial capital Shiraz.

Their father says the pair went missing after US doctors who were looking after the sisters fled the country during the confusion of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Years later he tracked them down to Karaj, near the capital Tehran, where a wealthy doctor had adopted them. The doctor, Alireza Safaian, says he found the twins abandoned in hospital.

Despite a court ruling awarding father-of-11 Bijani custody, the twins decided to stay with Safaian, unable to face life working on a farm in their village.

But the twins later grew estranged from Safaian and, the he said he had not been in contact with them for around 18 months.