Mo Farah

Britain's most successful track athlete said he was flown to the United Kingdom from Djibouti, aged nine, and given a new name by a woman he had never met.

It just shows how lucky I was." That's when Mo came out — the real Mo." It was there that he met Alan Watkinson, a physical education teacher, who fostered his athletic abilities.

In a new BBC documentary, the Olympic distance runner has revealed he was trafficked under the name of another boy.

It just shows how lucky I was," he said. In the documentary, Sir Mo said when he was nine years old, he was flown to the United Kingdom by a woman he had never met and to which he was not related. After arriving in the United Kingdom, the BBC reported he then had to do housework and childcare "if I wanted food in my mouth". "I was separated from my mother and I was brought into the UK illegally under the name of another child, called Mohamed Farah," he said. In a clip from the documentary, Sir Mo said he was four years old when his father was killed in a civil war, resulting in the family being "torn apart". He had previously said he came to the UK as a refugee from Somalia with his parents, but has now told the BBC he was born Hussein Abdi Kahin in Somaliland, a breakaway region in the north of Somalia which is not internationally recognised as independent.

'Truth is, I'm not who you think I am': Iconic UK track champion Mo Farah reveals real identity.

“I had all the contact details for my relative and once we got to her house, the lady took it off me and right in front of me ripped them up and put it in the bin and at that moment I knew I was in trouble,” he said. Farah’s wife Tania said in the year leading up to their 2010 wedding she realised “there was lots of missing pieces to his story” but she eventually “wore him down with the questioning” and he told the truth. “I was separated from my mother, and I was brought into the UK illegally under the name of another child called Mohamed Farah.”

London: Four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah has disclosed he was brought into Britain illegally from Djibouti under the name of another child.

The teacher, best man at Farah’s wedding, told the program: “It’s only recently that I’ve thought about it and questioned whether actually I did anything wrong in this scenario. “When I was four my dad was killed in the civil war, you know as a family we were torn apart. It was Watkinson who applied for Farah’s British citizenship which he described as a “long process.” Farah was recognised as a British citizen in 2000 and said in the program he named his son Hussein in honour of his roots.

The four-time Olympic champion said the film, titled The Real Mo Farah, enabled him to 'address and learn more' about his journey to Britain.

Following the announcement of the documentary, Sir Mo tweeted: “Through this documentary I have been able to address and learn more about what happened in my childhood and how I came to the UK. In the documentary, a barrister tells Sir Mo that although he was trafficked into the country as a small child and he told the relevant authorities the truth, there is still a “real risk” his British nationality could be taken away as it was obtained by misrepresentations. “So she told (me) ‘you don’t talk about anything’ otherwise I was in big trouble and I guess for me the only things that I could do, (that was) in my control was to run away from this was get out and run,” he said. If you say anything, they will take you away.’ He said: “I had all the contact details for my relative and once we got to her house, the lady took it off me and right in front of me ripped them up and put it in the bin and at that moment I knew I was in trouble.” Sir Mo’s wife Tania Farah said in the year leading up to their 2010 wedding she realised “there was lots of missing pieces to his story” but she eventually “wore him down with the questioning” and he told the truth.

The four-time Olympic champion said the film, titled The Real Mo Farah, enabled him to 'address and learn more' about his journey to Britain.

Following the announcement of the documentary, Sir Mo tweeted: “Through this documentary I have been able to address and learn more about what happened in my childhood and how I came to the UK. In the documentary, a barrister tells Sir Mo that although he was trafficked into the country as a small child and he told the relevant authorities the truth, there is still a “real risk” his British nationality could be taken away as it was obtained by misrepresentations. “So she told (me) ‘you don’t talk about anything’ otherwise I was in big trouble and I guess for me the only things that I could do, (that was) in my control was to run away from this was get out and run,” he said. If you say anything, they will take you away.’ He said: “I had all the contact details for my relative and once we got to her house, the lady took it off me and right in front of me ripped them up and put it in the bin and at that moment I knew I was in trouble.” Sir Mo’s wife Tania Farah said in the year leading up to their 2010 wedding she realised “there was lots of missing pieces to his story” but she eventually “wore him down with the questioning” and he told the truth.

Britain's most successful track athlete, Sir Mo Farah, has revealed he was trafficked into the United Kingdom as a child.

Farah’s captors claimed to be his parents to outsiders and didn’t allow him to go to school until he was enrolled in Year 7 at 12 years old. But Briddock said this was unlikely since he was trafficked and shared his story with relevant authorities. At first, Farah said he was excited to go and fly in a plane for the first time. At that moment, I knew I was in trouble,” says Farah. The same woman was the one to give him fake travel documents and tell him to call himself Mohamed. Now that he’s a father, he says his children have motivated him to share his true story.

The gold medallist has spoken publicly for first time about being brought to UK and forced to work as a child servant.

He was recognised as a UK citizen in 2000. “The truth is I’m not who you think I am,” Farah said in the BBC TV documentary. His only escape, he said, was athletics. He said he thought he was going to go to Europe to live with relatives, but when he arrived in the UK, the woman who accompanied him took a piece of paper from him that had his relatives’ contact details and “ripped it up and put it in the bin”. In the documentary – The Real Mo Farah – the star athlete instead revealed that his father had been killed in Somalia’s civil war and that he had been separated from his mother before coming to the UK. Instead, the 39-year-old said he had been given the name Hussein Abdi Kahin when he was born in Somaliland. He said he was trafficked to the UK by an unknown woman as a child, forced to assume the identity of an unknown boy to him named Mohamed Farah, and work as a servant.

Olympian hailed as inspirational figure after revealing he was trafficked and forced into domestic servitude.

But he was still the cheeky chap. He knocked on the commentator’s door, and I opened the door and he said: ‘Don’t you want to interview me?’, and I said: ‘Well, you only finished 17th, and we don’t normally interview the guy who’s finished 17th.’” “I’ve known him for more than 20 years, since he was a young kid.

"Most people know me as Mo Farah, but it's not my name — or, it's not the reality," Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah said, in a clip from an upcoming ...

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Four-time Olympic champion Mo Farah says he was illegally brought to the U.K. as a young boy and forced to care for other children before he escaped a life ...

He decided to tell his story to publicize and challenge people’s perceptions of human trafficking, he said. The teacher contacted local officials, who arranged for a Somali family to take him in as a foster child. Farah says his fortunes changed when he was finally allowed to attend school. “I wasn’t treated as part of the family…,” Farah says in the documentary. The woman took him to an apartment in west London where he was forced to care for her children, Farah said. His mother and two brothers live on the family farm in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia that is not internationally recognized.

The Olympian is widely praised for going public with his experiences of being trafficked into the UK.

He said it was "amazing" that the Olympian had emerged from his childhood experiences with a "light-hearted personality" and "steely determination". "I thought I knew the Mo Farah story and I thought I knew Mo Farah really well," Sir Brendan told the BBC. He described his story as a "Hollywood movie", adding that it was an "amazing, successful story of someone overcoming adversity." Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi said he "salutes" Sir Mo Farah, describing the Olympic star as "truly inspirational" and an "amazing human". Fellow Olympian Sir Brendan Foster said his story was like a "Hollywood movie". Sir Mo Farah is an "inspiration to people across the country" after disclosing that he was trafficked into the UK as a child, No 10 has said.

Farah grew up at a time of deep poverty and instability in the Horn of Africa, where criminal networks smuggling resources and people flourished.

Neighbouring Djibouti was relatively peaceful and so a haven for many in the region. Some travelled in the hope of bettering their lives, find safety from conflict or to flee persecution. But the region was also chaotic, very poor and violent. By the mid 1980s, a full-scale rebellion was under way, which eventually ousted Barre in 1991. Involvement in cold war proxy wars and military defeat by Soviet-backed neighbour Ethiopia also weakened the regime. He has said that he lived for several years in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, when very young, though he was not born there.

Farah revealed in a documentary titled The Real Mo Farah that he was brought to Britain from Somalia illegally.

Similarly, London Mayor Sadiq Khan tweeted his support for the Olympian. Figures from the world of politics have praised Farah as “truly inspirational” and a “great Briton” after he revealed he was trafficked into the UK as a child. It comes after the Metropolitan Police said it was “assessing” Farah’s allegations that he was trafficked into the UK as a child and forced to work as a domestic servant.