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 of servitude through running.
FILE - Britain's Mo Farah, right, runs as a pacemaker during the London Marathon in London, England, Oct. 4, 2020. Four-time Olympic champion Farah has disclosed he was brought into Britain illegally from Djibouti under the name of another child. “The truth is I’m not who you think I am," the 39-year-old Farah told the BBC in a documentary called “The Real Mo Farah.”
The athlete says he was 8 or 9 years old when a woman he didn’t know brought him to Britain using fake travel documents that included his picture alongside the name Mohammed Farah, the BBC reported. Farah, who represented Britain at three Olympic Games, won gold medals in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs at both the 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro.But in the documentary, he says his parents never were in the U.K. His father was killed by stray gunfire during unrest in Somalia when Farah was 4 years old, according to the film. His mother and two brothers live on the family farm in Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia that is not internationally recognized.
“I still missed my real family, but from that moment everything got better,” Farah said. “I felt like a lot of stuff was lifted off my shoulders, and I felt like me.” Farah was granted U.K. citizenship in 2000 and represented Britain at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Olympics. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017.
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