Four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah has revealed that he was separated from his family in Somaliland when he was 9 years old and trafficked to the UK under a different boy’s name.
The legendary long-distance runner was brought to England illegally from Djibouti and forced to do housework and childcare in exchange for food, he said in a preview clip of the upcoming BBC documentary, “The Royal Mo Farah.”
“The truth is that I am not who you think I am,” he said in the documentary that will air this week.
The 39-year-old father of four revealed his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin.
Farah, who became the first British track and field athlete to win four Olympic gold medals, said his children encouraged him to be honest about his past.
“Despite what I have said in the past, my parents never lived in the UK. When I was 4 years old, my dad died in a civil war,” Farah revealed. “As a family, we were devastated. I was separated from my mother and brought to the UK illegally, under the name of another child called Mohamed Farah.”
With a copy of the false visa that allowed him to enter the country at the age of 9, Farah showed the document under his false name.
“From that moment, entering, [I had] a different name, a different identity,” he said. “I know I’ve taken someone else’s place.”
“I wonder what Mohamed is doing now,” he added.
The athlete recalled how his mother sent him and his twin brother, Hassan, to live with their uncle after their father’s sudden death when Farah was just four years old.
Farah said she thought she was going to England to live with distant relatives and recalled what it was like to go through a British passport check in her new name after traveling with a woman she didn’t know.
He was seen consulting with a lawyer about the possibility of losing his citizenship as it was obtained fraudulently, but the UK Home Office told The Post that “no action will be taken against Sir Mo and suggest otherwise.” It is incorrect”.
“I had all my relative’s contact details and once we got to her house, the lady took it from me and right in front of me she tore it up and threw it in the trash, and at that moment I knew I was in trouble. ”, She said in the documentary.
He was then allegedly forced to live as domestic servitude for his family and would only be paid food.
“From the first day, what the lady did was not right. I was not treated like part of the family,” she said.
“If I wanted food in my mouth, my job was to take care of those kids, bathe them, cook for them, clean for them, and she said, ‘If you ever want to see your family again, don’t say anything or they’ll take you away. She would often lock me in the bathroom and cry.”
Farah eventually confided in teacher Alan Watkinson and moved in with his friend’s mother, who took care of him. He lived there for seven years.
Watkinson began the process of applying for Farah’s British citizenship, which she officially obtained in 2000.
That same year, he was reunited with his biological mother, Aisha, for the first time since age 9 after his friends back home recognized him on television.
Farah, who now has three children of his own with his wife Tania Nell, says he named his son Hussein after his roots.
Nell has another daughter named Rhianna, whom Farah has raised since she was a little girl.
with post wires
