Identical twins Amy Khvitia and Ano Sartania were taken away from their mother just after they were born and sold to separate families. But a TV talent show and a TikTok video made sure that the two discovered each other years later. Their case shows a larger problem in Georgia as the sisters are among thousands of babies in Georgia were stolen from hospitals and sold, some as recently as 2005.
Travelling from Georgia to Germany, Amy Khvitia and Ano Sartania finally met their birth mother as they built a picture of what happened.
But the story of how they found each other starts when they were 12. When Amy Khvitia was at her godmother's house near the Black Sea watching her favourite TV programme, Georgia's Got Talent, she saw a girl dancing the jive who looked exactly like her.
"Everyone was calling my mum and asking: 'Why is Amy dancing under another name?'" she said. But her mother brushed it off by saying, “Everyone has a doppelganger.”
Read more: Cyclone Kirrily in Australia: Thousands without electricity amid heavy rainfall
Then in November 2021, Amy Khvitia posted a video of herself with blue hair getting her eyebrow pierced on TikTok. This video reached Ano Sartania when her friend sent it to her as she thought it was "cool that she looks like me".
{{/usCountry}}Then in November 2021, Amy Khvitia posted a video of herself with blue hair getting her eyebrow pierced on TikTok. This video reached Ano Sartania when her friend sent it to her as she thought it was "cool that she looks like me".
{{/usCountry}}Ano Sartania tried to find the girl and shared the video on a university WhatsApp group to see if anyone could help. Someone who knew Amy Khvitia saw the message and connected them on Facebook.
"I have been looking for you for so long!" Amy Khvitia messaged to which Ano Sartania replied, “Me too.”
Both soon realised that something was not right as they disocovered that they were both born in Kirtskhi maternity hospital - which no longer exists - in western Georgia. As per birth certificates, their birthdays were a couple of weeks apart which means that they couldn't be sisters, much less twins.
It felt like they were unravelling a mystery together. "Every time I learned something new about Ano, things got stranger," Amy Khvitia said after which she met with Ano Sartania
"It was like looking in a mirror, the exact same face, exact same voice. I am her and she is me," Amy Khvitia while Ano Sartania recounted, “I don't like hugs, but I hugged her.”
Following the meeting, they decided to confront their families and for the first time they learned the truth that they had been adopted, separately, a few weeks apart in 2002.
Ano Sartania said that she "angry and upset with my family, but I just wanted the difficult conversations to be over so that we could all move on". The twins then found out that their birth mother, whom they found later, explained that she had been ill after giving birth and fell into a coma. When she awoke, hospital staff told her that shortly after the babies were born, they had died, she said.