Kota Bharu Twins Lived Apart For 19 Years Without Knowing They Were Swapped At Birth
Adryani and Adryana spent 19 years of their life living together as non-identical twins, without realising that they are not even biological sisters. Adryani's identical twin Noratirah was growing up elsewhere with another family.
By Sadho Ram — 27 Jun 2021, 02:14 PM — Updated over 3 years ago
Like the identical triplets in a 2018 documentary film Three Identical Strangers who were given to separate families as infants, two twin sisters here in Malaysia recently found out that they went through a similar fate when they were swapped at the hospital they were born
Like the documentary film, this case, too, has three 'sisters' which includes a pair of identical twins living apart for almost two decades not knowing that they were identical twins.
A Bernama report said that it is believed the swapping of the twin sisters, at the time of birth, was due to the negligence of the staff at a hospital in Kota Bharu, Kelantan. The hospital was not named.
On the day of the incident, 19 August 2001, three babies were born at 1.14am, 1.27am, and 1.34am.
In a couple of months this year, all three of them will turn 20. They are Adryani Iwani Ibeni Yanin, Adryana Iwani, and Noratirah Husin. Of the three, two of them — Adryani and Adryana — spent 19 years of their life living together as non-identical twins, without realising that they are not even biological sisters.
Adryani's identical twin Noratirah was being raised by another family in Kampung Pulau Kundur.
Adryani first got an inkling that her non-identical 'twin' might not be related to her and that she actually shares her looks with another girl when she was in Form Four and had attended a motivational camp
"At the camp, I met students from another school who said that I looked like their friend, Noratirah. I then asked them for a picture of Noratirah and they shared Noratirah’s Instagram account," Adryani said.
"I told my twin sister about it and she agreed that Noratirah and I looked the same, but when I told my mama about it, she dismissed it. So, I let it go and regarded our look-alike as simply two peas in a pod."
Her mother's dismissal led Adryani to not pay too much attention to it and she moved on.
Destiny, however, had different plans.
Adryani and Noratirah ended up meeting for the first time at an education fair held at a supermarket in Kota Bharu in the month of March 2019. Their face to face meeting caused each of them to be stunned.
The significant similarities in terms of their faces and bodies were hard to miss.
"Both of us were stunned to see our similarities. We were lost for words and only stared at each other and the incident was noticed by our friends," added Adryani while recalling her first meeting with Noratirah.
Adryani (left) with Adryana (middle), and Adryani's identical twin Noratirah (right).
Image via theSundaily/BernamaAt the time, the twins were too stunned to say anything to each other.
Adryani and Noratirah only got in touch via Instagram in August last year after learning that they shared the same date of birth.
According to Adryani, she had uploaded photos of her birthday celebration on her Instagram account when she was informed by her friends that she and Noratirah shared the same birthday, which is 19 August.
"This led Noratirah to contact me through Instagram and since then, we discussed a lot of things and discovered that there are too many similarities between us to be regarded as a coincidence," she said.
Following which, both of them decided to go for a DNA test and spoke with their families.
"After discussing, both families agreed to do a DNA test at Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital (HUSM) in Kubang Kerian, Kelantan to identify whether they were biologically related," Adryani added.
The Diploma in Nursing student explained that the DNA test was done using blood samples taken from her, her mother Siti Aminah Ismail, Adryana, Noratirah, and Noratirah's 'father' Husin Omar.
The result, which found Noratirah and I are 99.99% twin sisters, shocked us, especially my mama, who broke down in tears.
The DNA result also found that Adryana, who was registered as Adryani's non-identical twin sister, is actually the biological daughter of Noratirah's 'parents' Husin Omar and Rahmah Isa.
Rahmah, who passed away in 2018, was registered as Noratirah's mother.
According to Adryani's elder sister, Ayu Haryani, when their mother, Siti Aminah, gave birth to her twin sisters, the family was not informed by the hospital whether they were identical or not.
"Because the tags on their legs bore our mama's name, so our family never thought about it and assumed they (Adryani and Adryana) were not identical twins," Ayu told Bernama.
Adryani's mother was initially reluctant to accept the DNA results as she feared that it might cause a psychological impact on Adryana
Therefore, she decided to not reveal this to anyone for a while.
In the meantime, Ayu, who is the second child, with her older brother, three younger brothers, and four sisters, including the Adryani and Noratirah, continued to regard Adryana as part of their family.
After about two months they got the DNA results, Adryana's biological father passed away.
With both her biological parents dead, Adryana continues to live with Adryani's family, who have appointed a lawyer and are in the process of taking legal action against the party concerned.
Their story does have a happy ending
In January this year, Noratirah moved in to live with her biological family in Kampung Langgar.
The identical twins with Adryana are now living under the same roof.
