As a child he was taken to England under a false name and exploited there like a slave for a few years. Track and field athlete Sir Mo Farah has now made this public.
Former British track and field athlete Mo Farah at the celebrations to mark Britain’s Queen Elizabeth’s Platinum Jubilee in London June 5.
“When he runs, the nation rises. Sir Mo Farah, ennobled by the Queen, is the man who turns sweat into gold »wrote the NZZ five years ago about the exceptional British athlete. The article was about “The Last Show of Sir Mo Farah”, because in August 2017 Farah ended his track career before turning to the marathon.
Even then it was known that Farah, who comes from what is now Somaliland, had had a difficult childhood: he had come to England at the age of eight or nine and was still practicing his basic vocabulary in the seventh school year: he drove to a competition with his coach, Farah pointed to animals in amazement and said “cow” and “sheep”.
Hussein Abdi Kahin is his real name, his father was killed in the civil war
But what fate really lies behind Farah has now been revealed by the exceptional athlete in a documentary by the British television station BBC: As a child, he was illegally brought to England and exploited as a slave there for a number of years.
“The truth is I’m not who you think I am,” the four-time Olympic track and field champion said in pre-release excerpts of the show titled The Real Mo Farah.
The now 39-year-old was born as Hussein Abdi Kahin. In the early 1990s, his home country was engulfed in civil war, in which his father was also killed. Little Hussein was separated from his mother and taken to a family he did not know in Djibouti when he was eight or nine years old. From there, a woman took the child with forged papers – so he got the name Mohamed Farah – to Great Britain, where he was supposed to live with relatives. But when she arrived in Hounslow near London, the woman tore up the sheet with the contact details of her relatives. “In that moment I knew I was in trouble,” Mo Farah told the BBC.
The woman threatened him that he would not see his family again if he told anyone the truth. Farah had to do housework and take care of younger children to even get food. He was not allowed to go to school for the first few years. He didn’t enter seventh grade at Feltham Community College until he was twelve, where he was introduced as a refugee from Somalia.
His former class teacher, Sarah Rennie, tells the BBC that he came to school “unkemptly”, spoke little English and was an “emotionally and culturally alienated” child. His alleged parents never attended parents’ evenings.
“Locked in the bathroom and cried”
But when he put on the running shoes, Farah changed: “Often I just locked myself in the bathroom and cried. The only thing I could do to get out of this situation was go outside and run.”
His physical education teacher, Alan Watkinson, eventually contacted social services and helped him find foster care in the Somali community. “I felt like a lot was being lifted off my shoulders and I felt like myself. That’s when Mo came out – the real Mo,” Farah said.
He was soon reaping victories and was British student champion five times. Influential people became aware of the boy, encouraged him and financed his running training.
His children inspired him to the truth
Farah literally ran her way into the hearts of the British. Since triumphing in London in 2012 over 5,000 and 10,000 meters, he has been a superstar in his home country, and he defended the title four years later at the Olympic Games in Rio.
He received high entry and sponsorship money. He is active on social networks and has over 1.1 million followers on Instagram. Farah can be seen regularly on television, he also took part in the British jungle camp version “I’m a Celebrity … Get me out of here”.
Sir Mo has been in a happy family relationship with Tania Nell for many years. The two met during their studies and married in 2010. Nell brought her daughter Rhianna, who is now 17, into the marriage. The twins Amani and Aisha will be 10 in August, baby Hussein was born in 2015.
Incidentally, Sir Mo Farah also has a twin brother, Hassan. His autobiography, published in 2013, is entitled: «Twin Ambitions». It states that the family left Hassan in Djibouti when she moved in with her father, who is said to be already living in the UK. Hassan fell ill shortly before departure. When the father flew back to catch up with Hasan, he couldn’t find him. This loss shattered his relationship with his father, the parents’ marriage ultimately broke up, writes Farah. Only later was it found out that Hassan had moved to Somaliland with relatives. In 2003 he flew to Hassan’s wedding – and saw his twin brother there for the first time in 12 years.
Since the revelation of Mo Farah’s “life lie” in the BBC documentary, we now know that many of the dates and circumstances in his biography are not correct. What does seem credible, however, is the statement that for the first time in his adult life he “felt a peace” when he saw the brother.
Why is Farah going public now? “For years I just pushed it away, but you can only push it away for so long,” he says in the documentary.
It was also his own children who inspired him to go public with his true identity. “Family means everything to me and as a parent you teach your children to be honest. But I always felt that I had this secret, that I could never be myself and tell what really happened.”
