This is the incredible moment a pair of long-lost identical twins, separated at birth and sold on the black market, were reunited with their biological mother – all thanks to an investigation that exposed this shocking practice.
In moving images of their reunion, the twins, now in their early 20s, fell into the arms of their mother, who sobbed into her shoulders as the trio embraced for the first time since the young women were born.
Amy and Ano, born in 2002, were sold on the market after their mother fell into a coma. By the time she was told the crushing lie that her babies had died in childbirth, they had already been sold to two different families.
But after recognizing each other in videos, one on a TV talent show when they were 12 and the other in a TikTok video in 2021, the then-teenagers eventually got back together, largely in an investigation working to connect lost families.
The investigation found that for more than three decades, thousands of families in Georgia received the devastating news that their babies had died at birth.
This is the incredible moment a pair of identical twins, separated at birth and sold on the black market, were reunited with their biological mother thanks to an investigation that exposed the shocking practice.
The reality, however, was that newborns were trafficked on the black market, which meant that thousands of Georgians had no idea who their real families were.
One Georgian who found herself in an unimaginable situation was journalist Tamuna Museridze, who in an attempt to find her own family created the Facebook group ‘Vezdeb’.
Since then, the group has amassed 230,000 members and, along with DNA testing websites, has helped open the dark web of adoption and reunite families.
After finding incorrect details on his own birth certificate in 2021, Museridze founded the Facebook group and set out to locate his real family.
Based on the number of people who have contacted her since then, combined with the number of cases across the country, Museridze estimates that tens of thousands of babies were stolen from their biological parents.
Speaking to BBC News, he said he believes the black market, which operated from the early 1970s until 2006, “was systemic.”
Two family members their efforts helped unite were twins Ano and Amy, who for nearly 20 years had no idea they were born together in 2002.
Amy told the British broadcaster that she had a feeling about her twin when she was 12, when her friends told her they had seen a girl who looked like her dancing on ‘Georgia’s Got Talent’. She would later discover that it was Ano.
However, when he asked his family about it at the time, they ignored him. “Everyone has a double,” his mother told him.
But that’s not where his story ends.
Seven years later, in November 2021, Amy posted a video of herself on the social media app TikTok, with blue hair and an eyebrow piercing. The time came for Ano to see her resemblance and she was stunned to see a girl who looked like her.
Despite living 200 miles apart in Georgia, social media allowed them to connect.
They started talking on Facebook and eventually met in person.
While their birth certificates said they were born at the same hospital, Kirtskhi Maternity, the documents indicated they were weeks apart.
But when they met face to face, it was clear that they were identical twins.
‘It was like looking in a mirror, exactly the same face, exactly the same voice. “I am her and she is me,” Amy told the BBC.
The couple quickly discovered that they also had several similarities. They both liked the same music, they liked to dance and they had the same hairstyle.
Ano and Amy (pictured), identical twins who had no idea they were born together in 2002, were reunited thanks to the Georgia baby trafficking investigation
Amy Khvitia appears in family photos at different ages, before finding out she had an identical twin.
Despite living 200 miles apart in Georgia, social media allowed Amy and Ano to connect
However, the similarities went beyond the superficial, as they also suffered from the same genetic bone disorder called dysplasia.
They told the BBC that they felt like they were unraveling a mystery together.
“Every time I learned something new about Ano, things got stranger,” Amy said.
But amid the excitement of discovery, there was also anger.
Amy said she felt like her life had been a lie, while Ano said she was “angry and upset with [her] family, but [she] I just wanted the difficult conversations to end so we could all move on.” “It’s a crazy story,” Amy added, “but it’s true.”
They decided to confront their families and finally learned the truth.
The twins were adopted separately in 2002, a few weeks apart.
Unable to have children, friends of Amy and Ano’s mothers told them there were unwanted babies at the local hospital. If they paid the doctors, they could adopt one of these babies, take them home, and raise them as their own.
None of the adoptive families knew the girls were twins, they said, and claimed they were unaware the practice was illegal.
At the time, Georgia was going through a period of turmoil and mothers said they believed the adoption process was legitimate since doctors were involved.
Museridze told the BBC that at the time, a baby cost a year’s salary in Georgia, and that some babies ended up in the United States, Ukraine, Canada, Cyprus and Russia.
The twins shared their story on Museridze’s Facebook group and received a response from a woman in Germany saying they thought they might be related, as their own mother had given birth to twins at Kirtskhi Maternity Hospital in 2002.
DNA tests confirmed that this was the case.
Finally, after more than two decades, Amy and Ano were reunited with their biological mother, Aza, in an emotional moment captured by the BBC.
One Georgian who found herself in an unimaginable situation was journalist Tamuna Museridze, who in an attempt to find her own family created the Facebook group ‘Vezdeb’.
Aza explained to her daughters that she became ill after giving birth and fell into a coma. When she woke up, hospital staff told her that her babies had died.
The mother said meeting her lost daughters had given her life new meaning and they still stay in touch.
In 2006, Georgia changed its laws to combat trafficking, making illegal adoption more difficult, and in 2022 the government launched an investigation into historical child trafficking.
The BBC said it had contacted Georgia’s Home Office for more information about individual cases, but was told it would not release specific details.