Iran Mourns Deaths of Joined Twins

TEHRAN —  Friends wept and a brass band played solemn music Thursday as the bodies of formerly conjoined twins -- who touched the world with their determination to lead separate lives -- arrived in Iran for burial.

Ladan and Laleh Bijani, 29, died within 90 minutes of each other Tuesday after doctors in Singapore separated their heads in surgery that had never been attempted on adults. Their deaths caused grief around the world but particularly in Iran, the twins’ homeland.

About 60 friends and government officials, led by the head of the State Welfare Organization, Mohammed Reza Rahchamani, were at the Tehran airport.

Yellow-jacketed airport staff carried the coffins, draped in brown cloth, off the plane. Each coffin bore a bouquet of white flowers tied with black ribbon.

“They are separated now and rest in peace,” friend Noushin Mehran said as she watched with tears in her eyes. “They died while struggling for an independent separate life.”

A squad of soldiers saluted the coffins, which were placed in an ambulance en route to Tehran’s Grand Mosque, where hundreds of mourners paid their respects.

The bodies will be flown to Shiraz in southern Iran today, and are to be buried later in the day in Lohrasb, the southwestern village in which the twins were born.

Their parents, Dadollah Bijani and Maryam Safari, were said to be in Firouzabad, a town close to Lohrasb, on Thursday.

President Mohammad Khatami paid tribute to the twins’ resolve and patience, the government-run daily Iran reported Thursday.

“We should appreciate the patience of these two innocent birds who tolerated their difficult life and enthusiastically welcomed a happier future,” Khatami was quoted as saying.