A pair of identical twins have been reunited years after being sold and separated at birth — all because of a TikTok video.
Amy Khvitia and Ano Sartania, both 21, were born in Kirtskhi Maternity Hospital in Georgia. The pair were sold to different adoptive parents shortly after their birth in 2002.
The reunification of the twins spanned several years, starting when the pair were 12: Khvitia was watching Georgia’s Got Talent, when she saw a contestant that looked exactly like her, the BBC reports.
Khvitia said people she knew kept calling her adoptive mum to ask, “Why is Amy dancing under another name?”
She said her mum brushed the comments off.
Years later, in 2021, Khvitia posted a TikTok video of herself getting her eyebrow pierced.
Three hundred and twenty kilometres away in Georgia’s capital city, Tbilisi, Sartania was sent the video by a friend due to their strong resemblance.
Sartania sent a message in a university WhatsApp group after failing to get in contact with Khvitia.
A mutual friend put the pair in contact.
Khvitia knew instantly that Sartania was the girl she had seen on Georgia’s Got Talent.
Over the next few days, the pair realised they had more similarities and decided to meet.
“It was like looking in a mirror, the exact same face, exact same voice. I am her and she is me,” Khvitia said.
The twins then sought out their birth mother through Facebook group Vedzeb – meaning “I’m searching” in Georgian – which linked them to a sister who had grown up with their mum.
Their birth mother was told her twin daughters had died at birth.
The adoptive mothers of both girls, meanwhile, said they were told there was an unwanted baby at a local hospital who they could take home – for a fee.
Both adoptive families refused to admit how much they had paid for their daughters.
In 2022, the Georgian government spoke to more than 40 people as part of an investigation into historic child trafficking claims. However, it told Newswire “historic data has been lost”.
The Georgian government made multiple attempts to understand how the illegal adoptions occurred, including an investigation in 2003 into international child trafficking which led to a number of arrests.
However, very little information has been made public.
Sartania said she had “always felt like there was something or someone missing in my life”, but the feeling disappeared when she found Khvitia.