As a nine-year-old, he entered the UK illegally under the name of another child, the long-distance runner says in a BBC documentary. “The truth is I’m not who you think I am”
British long-distance runner Mohamed Farah has revealed in a BBC documentary that he is living under a fake name. “The truth is, I’m not who you think I am,” the four-time Olympic track and field champion said in pre-release excerpts of the show, titled The Real Mo Farah. “Most people know me as Mo Farah, but that’s not my name, that’s not reality.”
The 39-year-old from Somalia stated that he was born Hussein Abdi Kahin in a region that has since become largely independent as Somaliland. Contrary to what he previously stated, Farah said his parents never lived in the UK.
Instead, his father died in the civil war and he was separated from his mother. Five years after his father’s death, he finally traveled to the United Kingdom at the age of nine. “I was brought to the UK illegally under the name of a child other than Mohamed Farah.” He doesn’t know anything about his fate, says the athlete. He hopes he’s fine.
Farah said the fact that he was now going public was inspired by his own children. “Family means everything to me and as a parent you teach your children to be honest. But I always felt that I always had this secret, never being able to be myself and tell what really happened.” It is now important for him to be able to tell the truth, Farah continued.
Farah won gold in the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Shortly after his triumph at the home world championships in London in 2017 over 10,000 meters, Queen Elizabeth II even knighted him. In the documentary, a lawyer warns him that he could lose his British citizenship as a result of the revelation. But according to the British news agency PA, the Home Office in London has already indicated that he has nothing to fear.
