RIYADH: Syrian conjoined twins will be separated at the King Abdullah Specialist Children’s Hospital at the King Abdul Aziz Medical City (KAMC) in Riyadh on Sunday.

According to a KAMC spokesman, the forthcoming surgery will be the fourth and final stage to be performed on the Syrian twins.

The female twins, Tuqa and Yakeen, were conjoined at birth sharing a head.

“From time to time, the hospital performed preparatory surgeries since April 2014 on the twins,” he said, adding that there was remarkable progress in all the efforts.

The head of the multi-disciplinary medical team which is going to handle the surgery, Dr. Ahmad Al-Furrayan, said the proposed surgery will last for 12 hours and will be carried out in four phases. He pointed out that the success rate is 60 percent and he is positive that the surgery will deliver the expected results.

The twins share the head area and this kind of conjoining is the most difficult and complicated, he said.

He recalled that the first phase of the surgery performed in 2014 was carried out by Dr. Riad Aqeeli.

Sunday’s separation will be the 38th surgery performed on Siamese twins in the Kingdom since 1990, on cases from more than 18 countries.

Saudi Arabia has a team of top surgeons in the separation of twins with the experience of treating more than 65 twins, of which 30 have been successful during the past two decades.

The remaining cases were not fit for separation owing to health reasons.

Besides the Kingdom, the twins came from Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Malaysia, the Philippines, Poland, Morocco and Iraq.

Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeah, former health minister and general supervisor of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center, is a reputable surgeon for separation of conjoined twins in the Kingdom. He has been the pioneer of separation surgeries in the Kingdom.

The separation of conjoined twins is carried out on directives issued by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and the total expenses of the surgery and the travel costs are borne by the Saudi government as a humanitarian gesture.