- Doctors have removed a 4lb baby boy from the stomach of his seven-year-old twin brother.
- Alamjan Nematilaev was born with the freak foetus growing inside him.
- For seven years it lived like a parasite until a school doctor became alarmed about Alamjan's bulging tummy and took him to hospital.
- Surgeons who gave him a scan operated immediately, unaware that the baby was attached to the boy's blood vessels and still alive.
- They saved Alamjan from certain death, but knew the 8 inch foetus was doomed.
- Maksud ai-Magaibetov, who removed the baby, said: "Thank God the school doctor insisted on taking him to hospital. If this had gone on, we would not have been able to rescue him."
- And in a blast at Alamjan's parents, he added: "To my mind it was impossible not to notice the size of his belly.
- "I mean, the boy really looked like a woman in her sixth month of pregnancy."
- The bizarre story of Alamjan reads like the plot from a horror novel.
- His tummy grew and grew, but his plight went undiscovered for years because his parents thought he had rickets, a common childhood disease in his native Kazakhstan.
- Then, after a gym lessson, his school doctor took him for a medical examination.
- Consultants were baffled by the mystery lump - until they took a scan.
- His mother Gulnara, 30, said she almost fainted when doctors broke the news.
- She added: "I was stunned. It's just not what you expect to hear. We knew he was a bit overweight, but pregnant?
- "However, I could tell from the solemn expressions of the doctors that they weren't joking."
- GULNARA admitted that she told Alamjan off for making up stories when he complained of something moving inside him.
- "I hadn't listened properly and told him to be quiet," she sobbed.
- Alamjan's medical condition is not new, but doctors claim his case is unique because the others have been detected far earlier.
- Dr ai-Magaibetov said: "We couldn't believe our eyes when we scanned him.
- "We could see the clear shape of a baby inside him. And it wasn't a small baby. We have never heard of a case like it."
- Dr Valentina Vostrikova, who led the medical team, said: "It was remarkable - for almost seven years it lived like a parasite inside the boy's body.
- "The embryo was recognisably male and lay in such a way that he sustained himself from his brother.
- "Technically, the baby was alive, yet was not sustainable when separated from his brother."
- Alamjan's gran Mantsura said: "The doctors showed us the poor little twin. He was a big boy, with a head, a body, hair, nails and a penis. We just can't believe he was growing inside our boy."
- Gulnara plans to keep the tragedy a secret from Alamjan.
- She explained: "I don't want to frighten him, because he won't understand it.
- "He doesn't know how babies come into the world, and I don't think we'll ever tell him about this case because we don't want to shock him."
- Alamjan has been told not to show the scar on his stomach to anybody.
- He knows only that he had a lump inside him which has now been removed.
- "I had a football inside me," he said, cupping his hands to show the size of it. "But my mum has told me to stop talking about it."
- AUTHORITIES have tried to hush up the case, fearing it will disgrace their crumbling health system rather than create scientific interest.
- But a full postmortem will be carried out to study the phenomenon.
- Dr ai-Magaibetov said: "It will give us the answer as to what exactly happened and why.
- "One cause of the abnormality could be radioactive pollution in Kazakhstan dating from Soviet times, causing the unnatural development."
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