Four-time Olympic champion Mo (Mohamed) Farah said he immigrated to the UK from Djibouti as a child under the name of another child.
“I’m actually not the person you know,” the runner said in a BBC documentary called The Real Mo. The first Briton to win four gold medals in athletics has confirmed that his children have inspired him to face his past.
He indicated that he was born in Somaliland, northern Somalia, and that his real name was Hussein Abdi Kaheen, adding: “Despite what I said earlier, my parents never lived in the United Kingdom.” He said he was four years old when his father was killed during the civil war, adding: “My family was separated, separated from my mother and brought illegally to the UK under the name of another child named Mohammed Farah.”
In the documentary, Farah described thinking he was heading to Europe to live with his relatives and recalled going through a checkpoint in the UK in the name of Muhammad at the age of nine after traveling with the woman he used to did not know. . “I had numbers to call my family, but when we arrived at her house, the lady took them from me, tore them up in front of me and threw them in the trash. At that moment, I realized that I was in trouble, ”he said. added.
The sportsman took a film crew on a tour of his childhood home in east London and described “not very good memories” as he was not treated like a member of the family. Eventually, Farah told his mentor Alan Watkinson the truth and moved in with his mother’s friend, who took care of him for seven years. Watkinson applied for Farah citizenship in a “lengthy” process and was finally granted citizenship in 2000.
