Conjoined twins are fighting for their lives after being born with their heads fused together at a hospital in Indonesia.
Putra and Siti Hadijah were delivered prematurely by emergency caesarean section today at a hospital in Banda Aceh.
Known as craniopagus twins, the condition occurs in about one in 2.5 million births.
Fighting for life: Twin baby girls Putra and Siti Hadijah were born conjoined at the head at an Indonesian hospital
It is understood their skulls are joined but it is so far unclear if they also share brain tissue, as well as vital arteries and nerves.
Separating them can be dangerous, especially if there is significant blood flow between their brains.
Around 200 pairs of conjoined twins are born alive every year but only half of the tragic youngsters survive past their first birthday.
Approximately 70 percent of all conjoined twins are girls. Female siblings are more likely to survive than their male counterparts as statistics show although more male twins conjoin in the womb, females are three times as likely as males to be born alive.
Fragile: The conjoined twins are currently being cared for in Zainal Abidin Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) in Indonesia
Earlier this year, a pair of conjoined twins born sharing a liver were successfully separated in southwest China after an eight-hour operation.
The twin sisters were born on October 30 last year joined at the stomach, with doctors performing the first operation of its kind for the city of Kunming, the capital of China's Yunnan Province.
In February, ten-month-old conjoined baby girls from Texas survived a world-first operation to separate them.
Knatalye Hope and Adeline Faith Mata shared the same chest wall, lungs, pericardial sac (the lining of the heart), diaphragm, liver, intestines, colon and pelvis.
A team of more than 26 clinicians, including 12 surgeons, six anesthesiologists and eight surgical nurses at the Texas Children's Hospital operated to separate the girls.
Survivors: Twin sisters were born on October 30 last year, survived an operation to separate them
Success: The girls survived the first operation of its kind to be carried out in Kunming, the capital of China's Yunnan Province
The 26-hour surgery was the first time twins conjoined at the chest and abdomen in this way had been successfully separated.
It is not yet known what is planned for Putra and Siti in terms of future treatment as their lives hang in the balance.
The Indonesian city where they were born was ravaged by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami in South East Asia.
The disaster killed 221,000 people and destroyed the homes of more than 500,000.
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