Teens separated as children in Africa reunite in Idaho

It’s a touching story of long lost siblings reuniting.

15 year old twins Abi and Andrew Hansen share a photo album of their childhood with 19 year old Usifu Bangura. He’s their big brother who was adopted into a different family when they were just toddlers. A few years ago they reconnected after the twins adoptive parents tracked down Bangura in Montana.

The story begins in Africa when the twins were just babies living in a one room hut. A civil war in Sierra Leon had just claimed the life of their father.

“We were living in the slums and it was not a good environment and Fatu. our mother, knew that, so she had to make a choice – to let us suffer and be impoverished or let us thrive,” Bangura said.

Fatu took them to an adoption agency that worked with Americans. Andrew and Abi ended up with the Hansens and their seven children. Bengura eventually ended up in Montana.

Andrew says his life is much different than it would have been had he stayed in Sierra Leone.

“Honestly, I think that I would have been forced to go into a war or something like my father was forced to do,” Andrew said. “I think I would have ended up dead there, so I’m grateful I came here instead.”

Sandy and Bruce Hansen remember the joyous day they picked them up at the Salt Lake airport. They were shocked at how malnourished the children looked, but things changed quickly.

“After getting proper nutrition just within weeks it was a total difference, night and day,” Bruce Hansen said. “They literally grew five inches in one year.”

Finding Andrew and Abi filled a void for Bangura.

“I knew there was a missing piece — that I wasn’t just alone,” Bangura said.

After some searching, Bangura was able to locate his birth mother in Sierra Leon. The children talked to her on the phone. The Hansen parents were thrilled.

“I’m overjoyed as a mother to think she can now see that they got the life she was wanting them to have,” Sandy Hansen said.

Bangura is flying out this week to return to Sierra Leone to see his mother. He’s packing all kinds of humanitarian supplies and eventually plans to set up up a non-profit to give aid to his village.