The journey to discovery for Amy and Ano began when they were just 12 years old.
New Delhi:
In what could very well pass off as the real-life manifestation of Ramesh Sippy’s 1972 Bollywood blockbuster ‘Seeta Aur Geeta‘, a remarkably similar story of separation and reunion has surfaced from the eastern European country of Georgia.
Amy Khvitia and Ano Sartania, identical twins separated at birth and unknowingly living just miles apart in Georgia, found each other through a viral TikTok video and a talent show.
Their story, reported by the BBC, sheds light on a much larger issue plaguing Georgia – the alarming number of babies stolen from hospitals and sold over the decades, a scandal that remains largely unresolved.
The journey to discovery for Amy and Ano began when they were just 12 years old. Amy, engrossed in her favorite TV show, ‘Georgia’s Got Talent’, stumbled upon a girl dancing who bore an uncanny resemblance to her. Little did she know that the woman dancing was her long-lost sister.
Photo Credit: facebook.com/ana.sartania.16
On the other hand, Ano received a TikTok video featuring a woman with blue hair who looked remarkably like her. The woman in the video turned out to be her twin Amy.
Aza Shoni, the twins’ birth mother, had fallen into a coma due to undisclosed birth complications in 2002. Gocha Gakharia, her husband made a devastating decision – to sell Ano and Amy to separate families.
Ano was raised in Tbilisi, while Amy grew up in Zugdidi, both completely unaware of each other’s existence. Despite participating in the same dance contest at the age of 11, where onlookers noticed the striking resemblance, the truth remained elusive.
Their lives continued on parallel paths until the fateful TikTok video and subsequent reunion. However, as the twins sought answers to their own separation, they uncovered a shocking reality – they were just two among thousands of babies stolen from Georgian hospitals and sold, with cases reported as recently as 2005.
According to the BBC report, the incident took place two years ago on the Rustaveli Bridge in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital, where Amy and Ano met for the first time since their separation 19 years earlier.