Conjoined twins return to Nepal

By CNN's Suman Pradhan

KATHMANDU, Nepal (CNN) -- Young Nepali conjoined twin girls who made medical history last year by being the first to survive a marathon brain-separation operation in Singapore arrived back home Sunday.

Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha, 18 months old, arrived here on a Singapore Airlines flight with their parents, grandfather and a doctor.

The twins had been in Singapore for 13 months.

Arjun Dev Shrestha, the twins' maternal grandfather, told reporters the entire family was simply glad to be home.

"We will stay in Kathmandu for a few months and then decide whether to go to our hometown," he said, adding that medical facilities in the Nepalese capital were the main reason the family wanted to be in Kathmandu.

The twins come from Salyan, a district in southwest Nepal, where medical facilities are poor.

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A local newspaper quoted Ganga and Jamuna's paternal grandfather, Netra Bahadur Khatri, as saying, "We are very happy that they are returning home after more than a year.

They left Nepal with conjoined head, and are returning home with separate heads."

The twins were born joined at the head, and doctors here advised they be taken to Singapore for treatment.

Nepali hospitals lack the expertise and technology for advanced treatment, which the twins required to survive.

The family flew to Singapore last year, when a team of surgeons conducted a marathon operation on the twins lasting more than 96 hours.

In what has been termed a medical milestone, the operation succeeded in separating the heads and brains of the two girls.

News of the twins' ordeal gripped the public in Singapore, which has a large Nepali community, and led to donations totaling more than $360,000.

The twins' operation and recuperation made regular headlines in Nepal, where thousands prayed for the twins well-being.

"We're just glad for the young girls and the family," Shyam Bahadur K.C., editor of the influential Kathmandu Post, said after the twins' arrival in Nepal.