A Saudi medical and surgical team at King Abdullah Specialist Children’s Hospital in Riyadh has begun surgery to separate the 13-month-old Fijian conjoined twins, Jaspili and Disisia, in a complex operation expected to take about 15 hours, with 34 consultants, specialists, technical staff and nurses taking part.
The operation is being carried out at the hospital, located in King Abdulaziz Medical City, which is affiliated with the Ministry of the National Guard, in implementation of the directives of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It is being conducted under the Saudi Conjoined Twins Programme, which continues to perform separation operations for cases referred to it from different countries around the world.
The twins arrive and medical assessments begin in Riyadh
Dr Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, supervisor general of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre and head of the medical and surgical team, said the twins arrived in Saudi Arabia on 21 July 2026 and had undergone a series of detailed medical examinations and multidisciplinary assessments since their arrival.
The examinations showed that the girls are conjoined in the abdominal and pelvic regions and share the liver, intestines, colon, anus, urinary system and reproductive system, as well as the pelvic bone. The nature of the conjoining makes the operation highly complex because of the number of shared organs and body parts and the need to deal with each of them during the separation stages. Al-Rabeeah said the medical team had drawn up a plan to carry out the operation in nine stages over about 15 hours.
The participating teams include specialists in anaesthesia, paediatric surgery, plastic surgery, orthopaedic surgery and urology, along with supporting medical specialties, technical staff and nurses. The head of the medical and surgical team said medical assessments and diagnostic studies had put the likelihood of success at about 70%, given the complexity of the twins’ condition and the nature of the organs they share.
First Fijian separation operation under the Saudi programme
He expressed hope that the operation would be successful, that the girls would recover and that they would return to their country in good health and safety. The surgery is the first separation operation for conjoined twins from the Republic of Fiji under the Saudi Conjoined Twins Programme, and is the 74th separation operation recorded by the programme since its launch.
Since beginning its work in 1990, the programme has provided care and medical assessment to 159 conjoined twins from 28 countries across five continents, according to figures announced by Al-Rabeeah. The programme has operated for more than three decades in dealing with complex medical cases requiring multidisciplinary teams and advanced surgical and therapeutic capabilities.
Al-Rabeeah said the support received by the programme had helped develop its medical and surgical capabilities, as it continued to handle cases involving conjoined twins and carry out separation operations through teams comprising multiple medical and surgical specialties.
