Mo Farah, a four-time Olympic athletics champion, has revealed in a documentary that he arrived in Britain illegally under a false identity before being forced to work as a household servant.
“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,” said the British athlete in an interview which will be broadcast on the BBC on Wednesday.
Farah said he was given the name Mohamed Farah by a woman who brought him to the UK from Djibouti, an East African country, when he was nine years old.
The athlete, whose father was killed in Somalia when he was four, said his real name was Hussein Abdi Kahin.
“The real story is that I was born in Somaliland, northern Somalia, as Hussein Abdi Kahin. Despite what I have said in the past, my parents never lived in the UK, he continued.
Farah, the first British athlete to win four Olympic gold medals, also said she was forced to do housework and care for other children in a family in Britain.
One day, he finally revealed the truth to his physical education teacher, Alan Watkinson, and he went to live with the mother of a “friend” who “really looked after” him.
Watkinson then applied for British citizenship for Farah, who was finally granted it on July 25, 2000.
The athlete explains that it was his children who encouraged him to reveal the truth about his past.
“I kept it for so long, it was hard because you don’t want to deal with it, and a lot of times my kids would ask questions […]. And you always have an answer for everything, but you don’t have an answer for that. »
“That’s the main reason I tell my story, because I want to feel normal and not feel like I’m clinging to anything,” he said.
Farah, who called her son Hussein in reference to his real name, concluded: “I often think of the other Mohamed Farah, the boy whose seat I took on that plane, and I really hope he going well”.