July 12, (THEWILL) – English iconic marathoner, Sir Mo Farah, has disclosed that he was illegally trafficked to the UK as a nine-year-old, revealing that he was flown over from Djibouti and that his original identity is Hussein Abdi Kahin.
The 39-year-old became a household figure in the UK after winning gold in the 5,000m and 10,000m events at London 2012. He defended both victories in Rio 2016, as the long-distance runner, became a double-double Olympic champion, and he was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours.
Mo had previously stated that he arrived in the UK as a refugee with his parents, but in a documentary titled, “The Real Mo Farah,” which will air on Wednesday, he claims that he was brought to the country illegally when he was nine years old by a woman he had never met – and told to use the name and documents of a child Named Mohamed Farah, before being forced to work as a domestic servant.
“For years I just kept blocking it out. But you can only block it out for so long,” he said, adding that his parents have never visited the United Kingdom. Farah’s mother and brothers live in the Somaliland breakaway state, but his father died when he was four years old.
“Most people know me as Mo Farah, but it’s not my name, or it’s not the reality. The real story is that I was born in Somaliland, north of Somalia, as Hussein Abdi Kahin. Despite what I’ve said in the past, my parents never lived in the UK. When I was four, my dad was killed in the civil war. As a family we were torn apart. I was separated from my mother, and I was brought into the UK illegally under the name of another child called Mohamed Farah.”
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