Mo Farah, king of the slopes knighted by the Queen of England for his Olympic exploits, reveals in a documentary that he arrived in Great Britain illegally under a false identity. He was forced to work as a servant in a family.
“The truth is, I’m not who you think I am. Most people know me as Mo Farah, but that’s not the reality. I was separated from my mother, and I was brought to the UK illegally under the name of another child called Mohamed Farah“, explains the quadruple Olympic champion in an interview which will be broadcast on Wednesday on the BBC.
Farah (39) recounts being given Mohamed Farah’s name by a woman who brought him to the UK – telling him he would join relatives there – from Djibouti, an east African country, at 9 year. The athlete, author of the 5000/10,000m double at the London Olympics in 2012 and Rio in 2016, reveals that his name is actually Hussein Abdi Kahin. His father was killed in Somalia when he was 4 years old. His mother and 2 brothers live in the separatist region of Somaliland, unrecognized by the international community.
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“Do not say anything”
He had previously explained that he was born in Mogadishu, capital of Somalia, and arrived in Great Britain in 1993 at the age of 10 with his mother and 2 of his brothers and sisters to join his computer scientist father.
On his arrival in the country, the woman who accompanied him took the paper on which appeared the coordinates of his relatives, “torn up and put in the trash”relate Farah. “At that moment I knew I had a problem“. Farah, the 1st Briton to win 4 Olympic titles in athletics, also says he was forced to do housework and look following other children in a British family if he wanted to”to have something to eat“.
“If you want to see your family once more one day, don’t say anything”, he heard himself say. “Often I would lock myself in the bathroom and cry“, he confides.
Confidence in a teacher
The professor then applied for British citizenship for the athlete, who was finally granted it on July 25, 2000.
Pushed to speak by his children
The athlete explains that it was his 4 children who encouraged him to reveal the truth regarding his past. Farah, who called her son Hussein in reference to his real name, concludes: “I often think of the other Mohamed Farah, the boy whose seat I took on that plane, and I really hope he is well.”
No prosecution will be initiated
Mo Farah will not be prosecuted in the UK following his revelations that he arrived in the country illegally under a false identity as a child some 30 years ago, the Home Office has said. “No prosecution will be brought once morest Sir Mo Farah and to suggest otherwise is false”a Home Office spokesman confirmed.
