Four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah has revealed that he was illegally taken to Britain from Djibouti under the name of another child.
“The truth is, I’m not who you think I am,” Farah, 39, told the BBC in a documentary called The Real Mo Farah.
Farah, who became the first British athletics athlete to win four Olympic golds, said her children have motivated her to be honest about her past.
Four-time Olympic champion Sir Mo Farah revealed that he was illegally taken to the UK as a child and forced to work as a domestic worker. (BBC)
“The real story is that I was born in Somaliland, in northern Somalia, as Hussein Abdi Kahin,” he told the BBC.
“Despite what I’ve said in the past, my parents never lived in the UK.
“When I was four my father was killed in the civil war, you know that as a family we broke up.
“I was separated from my mother and taken to the UK illegally under the name of another child named Mohamed Farah.”
After arriving in the UK, he was forced to work as a domestic worker and was forced to care for the children of another family.
During the documentary, Farah said she thought she was going to Europe to live with relatives and recalled going through a British passport check under the guise of Mohamed at the age of nine after traveling with a woman she did not know before.
“I had all the contact details of my relative and once we got to her house, the lady took it out of me and right in front of me she ripped it off and put it in the bin and at that moment I knew I was in trouble , “He said.
Farah said the woman told him, “If you ever want to see your family again, don’t say anything.”
“I would often lock myself in the bathroom and cry,” he said.
In the documentary, Farah (pictured at the bottom left of this photo) admitted that her name was stolen from another child and that she had used it to create a fake passport. (BBC) The Olympic star told the BBC that those who flew him from Djibouti named him Mohamed Farah. His real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin. (BBC)
The athlete traveled back to her childhood home in west London, recalling “not-so-great memories” where she was not treated as part of the family.
Eventually, Farah told the truth to Professor Alan Watkinson and moved in with her friend’s mother who took care of him and ended up staying seven years.
It was Watkinson who applied for British citizenship of Farah, which he described as a “long process”.
Farah was recognized as a British citizen in 2000.
The “Disco Demolition” baseball promotion is so successful that the game has to be canceled