New Delhi, Sep 4 (IANS): Nigerian twins joined at the lower abdomen and hips were successfully operated upon and separated at the B.L. Kapur (BLK) superspeciality hospital after a 13-hour surgery.

The twin girls - Hussaina and Hassana Badaru - are the first foreigner twins to be separated in India.

"The separation surgery took us 13 hours, with further surgery of five hours dedicated to reconstruction. The separation was a big challenge as they had unusual sharing of the alimentary canal and the nervous system," said Prashant Jain, one of the experts performing the surgery.

The incidence of conjoined twins is high in south west Asia and Africa, with cases in Nigeria as high as 53 per 1,000 deliveries.

"The girls were seven months old when they were brought to the BLK Hospital. They were suffering from 'pygopagus', a case in which the babies are joined at the sacral region and the hips. This is considered to be the rarest of rare case that occurs in 50,000 or 100,000 births," said Praneet Kumar of BLK Hospital.