LONG-LOST twins who had never met before are reunited 19 years after they were separated at birth, thanks to a video posted on TikTok.
Ano Sartania and Tako Khvitia, now 21-year-old, were sold in a sick scheme to an illegal adoption ring in Georgia.
Ano’s friends thought she had dyed her hair blue when they found a TikTok video with a girl in a tattoo shop.
They sent the video to Ano, asking why she had changed her hair colour.
To everyone’s surprise, the girl in the video turned out to be someone else.
Confused and intrigued by the girl who bears a striking resemblance to her, Ano began her search for the mysterious stranger.
She decided to post on Facebook to find her lookalike and Tako’s friend came across the post.
The long-lost twins finally got in touch and reunited at the Rustaveli station in the centre of the capital of Georgia – Tbilisi.
Ano reflected on her strange experiences, saying, “I always had this feeling that someone was following me everywhere I went, every day I had the same dream of a little girl, dressed in black, asking me questions about my daily routine.”
But their fascinating life story has a twisted beginning.
In June 2002, Aza Shoni gave birth to twin girls in a hospital in a small town of Kirtski, Georgia.
But due to birth complications, the twin’s mother went into a coma for a few days.
In the meantime, her husband, Gocha Gakharia, with whom she already had three children, decided to sell the newborn babies.
Gakharia had claimed during the pregnancy that the daughters were not his and disowned them the second they were born.
When the unsuspecting mother awakened from her coma, her corrupt doctor told her that her babies had died after the birth.
While devastated Shoni was grieving the loss of her children, her husband sold the newborn girls into two different families that lived in different cities in Georgia.
One grew up in Tbilisi, the state capital, while the other one was raised in Zugdidi, Migrelia by the Black Sea.
Over 100,000 children were sold in Georgia between 1950 and 2006, reported La Repubblica.
After the fall of the USSR, many of those kids were adopted by families in the USA, Canada and Europe for tens of thousands of dollars.
Tamuna Museridze also was a victim of the illegal adoption ring in the country.
She discovered the truth of her birth after the death of her adoptive mother and is still looking for her biological parents.
Museridze became an advocate against the adoption-for-sale scheme, which enriched doctors, judges and notaries, and founded the Facebook group “Vedzeb” (“I’m looking”).
The community has gathered over 230,000 members who are looking to find their biological families.
Alongside a group of eight women, Museridze has helped uncover the identities of 700 stolen babies in just two years.
Museridze said: “The first solved case dates back to 1981. A boy, Gia , wrote to us looking for his biological mother.
“The adoptive mother had revealed to him that she had obtained him for a fee from a gynaecologist in a hospital in the capital.
“We found this woman, we confronted her, we told her we knew everything about her. She confessed.”
Another case involved a small body of apparently lifeless newborn handed over to his parents, who destroyed by grief, had buried him.
Years later, the small tomb was opened but only stones and branches were found inside.
Museridze encourages more people to use DNA-testing to increase the chances of finding long-lost relatives.
Even distant relatives can offer a start point and a valuable direction in the quest to reunite families.
In September 2022, Georgia’s Ministry of the Interior convenes the organisation founded by Museridze to discuss the topic of illegal adoptions in the country.
But the case hasn’t moved anywhere since then.
Museridze said:”They told me they had started an investigation, since then I haven’t heard anything about it.”
