Dakar - the capital of Senegal. A bustling city on Africa's west coast and one which gave Ibrahima a good life. A successful project manager, he worked organising holidays and events across the region, largely for French and British tourists. He was the father of older teenagers from his first marriage, and in 2015, his second wife fell pregnant. “Scans showed a girl,” Ibrahima says. “Just one girl.” Even when his wife went into labour three weeks early, a precautionary caesarean advised due to the large “bump”, nothing untoward was expected. “I was waving to my wife from behind the glass, signalling everything would be okay,” he explains. “The doctors removed the baby, then whisked it away, telling me all was fine.”

Clinique Niang in Dakar, where the twins were born

It was two in the morning and, like everyone else, Ibrahima was shattered, still dressed in his work suit and shoes. In fact, he was meant to be in Belgium that day, collecting an award from Brussels Airlines for his efforts in organising a charity bike tour. Reassured and relieved, he wandered outside on to the busy boulevard, breathing in the humid night air. He leaned back against a wall, thanking God for the safe delivery of his daughter. But as he did, a message came for him to return inside to meet Dr Lamine Cissé, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology.

Dr Lamine Cissé

Ibrahima knew this doctor well as he had delivered two of his older children. But this time, his face was serious. Ibrahima says: “He sat me down and said, ‘We need to talk about the twins’.” Twins? Ibrahima's mind began spinning. The scans hadn't detected twins. Had his babies been swapped? Stranger things happened in Senegal... Thirty minutes later, just as Ibrahima began to accept the news, there was more to come. “So tell me... what is wrong with the twins?” he asked, slowly. “Conjoined,” Dr Cissé said. “They are conjoined.” And it was at that moment, on 18 May 2016, that Ibrahima's world changed forever.

“I couldn't take it in,” Ibrahima explains. “I was silent, trying to figure out how this had been missed. “I was so angry at the people who had done the scans. “I couldn't speak, tears were coming. I was kicking things and raging against God.” It wasn't until five in the morning that Dr Cissé took Ibrahima to meet his girls, as his wife lay recovering. Ibrahima says: “I hoped it would be something simple, and that they could be separated easily. “I remember walking into the room, feeling overwhelmed but curious. “They were on scales being weighed, so the first I saw was their faces peeping upside down at me. Then I saw the conjoined arm. “I walked around the scales. They were tiny, weighing just over half a stone (3.8kg). “I couldn't understand how they were built. I was expecting four feet, instead there were two. “They were both looking at me and I froze.”