Anno Sartania and Amy Khvitia. Picture: Anno Sartania / Facebook
Twin sisters, separated and sold at birth, have been reunited almost two decades later, thanks to social media.
Amy Khvitia and Anno Sartania met for the first time in 19 years after they were separated as babies and sold to different families. The girls have also been reunited with their biological mother, Aza Shoni, who was told that her daughters died shortly after birth.
BBC.com reported that Aza went into a coma after giving birth and when she woke up, nursing staff told her that her babies had passed away. According to the Deccan Herald, the girls' father, Gocha Gakharia, decided to sell the girls to separate families. Sartania grew up in Tbilisi, and Khvitia in Zugdidi, less than 400 kilometres apart n Georgia.
The identical twin sisters discovered each other by chance, thanks to a television talent show, a TikTok video, and a Facebook group, the BBC reported.
At the age of 12, Khvitia was watching Georgia's Got Talent when she saw a girl dancing on TV. The girl looked just like her and people called her mother to ask why she was dancing under another name on the popular talent show.
Years later, in November 2021, Khvitia posted a video of herself on TikTok. In the video, she was getting her eyebrow pierced. The TikTok video was sent by a friend to Sartania, who thought the person in the video looked just like her.
Sartania then tried to trace the girl in the video but could not find her.
According to BBC.com, she shared the video on a university WhatsApp group and someone was able to identify the girl in the video and connect the sisters on Facebook.
Khvitia then realised it was the same girl she saw on Georgia's Got Talent seven years ago.
The pair instantly hit it off and later found out that they both shared the same love for music.
A week after the Facebook encounter, they met face-to-face.
They were also able to trace their birth certificates, which revealed their real birth date.
Some time later, Khvitia discovered a Facebook group that reunited Georgian families with children who were illegally adopted at birth.
Khvitia shared a post and a young woman in Germany responded. She shared that her mother had given birth to twins and had doubts about whether or not they were alive.
Through DNA tests, the twins and the woman in Germany found that they were related and that Aza Shoni, the twins' birth mom, was living in Germany.
While Khvitia was desperate to meet her mother, Sartania wasn't as open to the meeting. The women eventually did meet their mother and now remain in contact.
IOL