Today he is one of the greatest British athletes, but Sir Mo Farah illegally arrived in London where he spent his early years as a slave child. To reveal his past was the same 39-year-old marathon runner of Somali origin, several times gold medal at the Olympicsin a documentary that will be released tomorrow by the BBC, but which has already caused a lot of emotion in Great Britain.
So far Mo had told of arriving as a child in Great Britain as a refugee from Somaliland with his parents. But in reality it was a woman who took him to London who had stolen him in unclear circumstances from his uncle in Djibouti to whom he had been entrusted. The future Olympic champion, whose real name was Hussein Abdi Kahin, was then only eight to nine years old. He was given false documents under the name of Mohammed Farah.
Upon arrival in England, the woman accompanying him tore up the note with the contacts of his relatives in front of his eyes. Little Mo was sent to a Somali family in London where he was forced to work as a servant. “I often closed myself in the bathroom to cry,” he told the BBC.
The ransom came when Mo was finally sent to school at the age of 12. He was a shy child who spoke little English and whose ‘parents’ never showed up at school. His gym teacher, Alan Watkinson, noticed that he was transforming on the athletics field. And little by little, Mo opened up to Wilkinson, who was able to put him in the care of another Somali family and launch him into athletics. In 2000, as his irregular situation hampered his sports career, the teacher helped him obtain British citizenship.
Today Mo Farah is one of the most famous middle distance runners and marathon runners in the world, awarded the title of sir by Queen Elizabeth. And as his fame grew, he also managed to find his real family. One day, in a London restaurant, a Somali woman approached him and gave him a taped tape. It contained a traditional song sung by his mother Aisha. And there was also a phone number, with an invitation to call. “But if this can cause you trouble, don’t do it,” the message added.
Mo naturally called. And the documentary shows him while, accompanied by his son, he meets his mother and two brothers in Somaliland. Mo’s father had been killed by a stray bullet when he was four and his mother had sent her son to stay with an uncle in Djibouti because they were too poor. But no one had warned Aisha that her son had been brought to London by a stranger.
“Never in my life would I have hoped to see you again alive“- Aisha said at the time of the meeting -” we lived in a place where there was nothing, no cattle, a devastated land. We thought we were all going to die. I sent you away because of the war. I sent you to your uncle in Djibouti so you could have something. “Nobody told me they sent you to the UK, he added,” I lost contact with you, they had no phones, no roads, nothing. Everything was devastated “.
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