Emotional Sir Mo Farah Meets The 'Real' Mo Farah For First Very Time
Sir Mo Farah spoke to the 'real' Mohammed Farah for the very first time in an emotional phone call. You can watch below:
In a new documentary by the BBC and Red Bull Studios, the four-time Olympic gold medalist speaks with the man whose name he adopted after being illegally trafficked to the UK when he was a young child.
While opening up about his tragic childhood, he reveals that his birth name is Hussein Abdi Kahin and that he was given the moniker by those that flew him over from Djibouti.
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In a conversation with the man whose name he became famous with, Farah says: "I can't believe I'm speaking to you.
"I've carried your name for years, and I'm very proud of what I have achieved, but I always wondered, 'where is Mohamed, is he OK?' I think about it all the time."
The 39-year-old previously claimed that he had made the journey to the UK from Somalia with his parents as a refugee, but his parents had never been to the country.
Instead, as explored in The Real Mo Farah, he and his family had lived on a farm in the breakaway state of Somaliland, and his father had been killed in civil violence by stray gunfire when Farah was just four years old.
In the documentary, he explains: "Most people know me as Mo Farah, but it’s not my name or it’s not the reality.
"The real story is 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, you know 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."
He was given the name by a woman who took him from his family when he was around eight or nine years old, claiming she was sending him to live with relatives in Europe.
When they arrived at the flat in Britain, she destroyed the contact details of his relatives, and he was forced to carry out domestic housework and childcare in order to survive.
Farah says she blackmailed him into keeping quiet about the situation if he ever wanted to visit his family again.
The athlete eventually made it into school in Year 7 and his talents for running shone through in his PE classes.
Eventually he confided in his PE teacher, who swiftly contacted social services and found Farah a safe family to live with.
Living in a stable environment allowed him to flourish throughout his high school years, and he eventually became a British citizen in 2000.
"I still missed my real family, but from that moment everything got better," he says in the documentary.
"I felt like a lot of stuff was lifted off my shoulders, and I felt like me. That's when Mo came out - the real Mo."
The Real Mo Farah airs on BBC One at 9pm tonight, 13 July, or you can watch it on BBC iPlayer now.
Daisy Phillipson