Twins separated, sold at birth reunited by TikTok video
Twin girls who were separated at birth and sold illegally in Georgia were reunited thanks to TikTok.
Amy Khvitia, 19, was at her grandmother's house watching Georgia's Got Talent when they saw a girl who looked exactly like her on TV.
"Everyone was calling my mum and asking, 'Why is Amy dancing under another name?'" she told the BBC.
Seven years later, Amy, who sported blue hair at the time, posted a video of her eyebrow piercing on TikTok in November 2021.
Her video eventually reached 19-year-old Ano Sartania after a friend sent the clip. At first, she thought it was "cool" that they looked alike.
Later on, she tried to trace her look-a-like through a WhatsApp group where she found someone who knew the blue-haired girl.
"I have been looking for you for so long!" Amy said in a Facebook message. "Me too," replied Ano.
They then discovered they had a lot in common, including the hospital where they were born and their love for dancing. They even had the same genetic bone disorder.
Their birth certificates also bore birthdays that were just a couple of weeks apart.
Eventually, the girls met up at a metro station in Tbilisi and learned that they were indeed twins.
"It was like looking in a mirror, the exact same face, exact same voice. I am her and she is me," Amy said.
"I don't like hugs, but I hugged her," said Ano.
While their story is heartwarming, it also uncovered illegal child trafficking in their country.
The twins told the BBC that their mothers learned there was an unwanted baby at the local hospital. They paid an undisclosed amount of money to adopt the girls, which is illegal.
Amy and Ano also searched, with hesitation, their birth mother through a Facebook group dedicated to helping reunite Georgian families.
When the twins met their biological mother, Aza, in a hotel in Leipzig, Germany, all of them felt nervous. The moment the door opened, Aza embraced the girls tightly in a minutes-long hug.
Amy was in tears while Ano, who was skeptical of the whole thing in the first place, remained stoic and "even looked a little irritated," as per BBC.
The twins later learned that their mom went into a coma after she gave birth. When she woke up, she was told her babies had died.
"I felt something like I've never felt," Amy said.
"I didn't have any feelings toward this person... When I hugged her, I felt anger more than anything else," Ano added.
Journalist Tamuna Museridze, who started the Facebook group that aided their reunion, told the BBC that illegal adoptions went on in Georgia from the early 1950s to 2005.
