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ST MORITZ, SWITZERLAND – AUGUST 03: Mo Farah reflects in between training sessions on August 03, 2018 in St Moritz, Switzerland. This image is part of a series following Mo Farah behind the scenes in his journey towards the Tokyo Olympics. Farah is a multiple Olympic, World and European champion and Britain’s most successful track athlete in modern Olympic Games history. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
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ST MORITZ, SWITZERLAND – AUGUST 03: Mo Farah reflects in between training sessions on August 03, 2018 in St Moritz, Switzerland. This image is part of a series following Mo Farah behind the scenes in his journey towards the Tokyo Olympics. Farah is a multiple Olympic, World and European champion and Britain’s most successful track athlete in modern Olympic Games history. (Photo by Michael Steele/Getty Images)
One person changed Mo Farah’s life forever. As a shy 9‑year‑old who arrived in London from Somalia under a false name, he found hope when PE teacher Alan Watkinson placed him in a family that nurtured his gift for running. From school sports days to global finals, he rose to win 10 World and 4 Olympic medals. But before the triumph, his life had begun in incredibly difficult circumstances that no one could imagine.
Four-time Olympic gold medalist Mo Farah is now participating in ‘I’m a Celebrity: South Africa,’ where he opened up to his fellow celebrities about his harrowing past.
“It was quite a long story, but yeah, I was living in Somalia when I was young, and then the Civil War kicked in, and I lost my dad in the war,” Farah said on the show, as per Manchester Evening News.
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“So when that happened, my mum was just like, it was madness. She couldn’t deal with eight of us, eight kids. I had a relative of mine living in Holland at that moment, it was like yeah we’re gonna go see my relatives. But it wasn’t the case.”
Farah thought he was heading to the Netherlands to live with relatives, but instead someone he had never met took him to her home in the UK, where she made him do chores and more.
Farah added, “Basically, I was child trafficked to the UK. This Lady comes in. She’s like, ‘this is your name’.”
“My relative wrote details. So I thought it was like, go with the lady, and then on the other side, you get to meet your family. No, it was a whole different thing,” he said.
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Athletics – British Athletics Championships – Manchester Regional Arena, Manchester, Britain – June 25, 2021 Britain’s Mo Farah during the Men’s 10,000m Action Images via Reuters/Molly Darlington
This is not the first time Mo Farah has opened up about his ordeal; he did so in a lengthy BBC documentary released in 2022. There, the Olympian explained that his father’s death in the late 1980s led Farah’s mother to decide that he and his twin brother, Hassan, must leave to survive. She first sent them to their uncle’s home in the Horn of Africa and later planned to send them to Europe.
Instead, he was taken to the UK. They also changed his name from Hussein Abdi Kahin to Mohammed Farah, a name he later adopted after obtaining British citizenship.
“Yeah, my name’s not Mo it was Hussein,” Farah explained. “The lady had me to do chores and look after her kids. I was like a maid.”
It meant that for years, Mo Farah had no idea whether his real family, his brother Hassan, and his mother were alive or not. That all changed when he was a teenager.
Mo Farah reflects on discovering that his real mother was alive
Farah escaped after he gained permission to attend school. There, he discovered his talent for running and confided in a PE teacher. The teacher reached out to social services, who arranged for Farah to live with another family.
That teacher later helped him obtain UK citizenship. Even then, the now 43-year-old had no idea if his family was still alive. One day, while working at a restaurant, a woman approached him and said his mother had been looking for him. She told him she had recently seen his mother in Somaliland.
“I was like, ‘Saw my mum? She’s alive?’ And she’s like, ‘Yeah, she’s alive. Here’s a photo, if you don’t believe me’. And then she said, ‘Look, this is a cassette tape for you,” Farah revealed.
“It wasn’t just a tape, it was more of a voice, and then it was singing sad songs for me like poems or like traditional song, you know. And I would listen to it for days, weeks.
“The side of the tape had a number on it, and then on it, it said, ‘If this is a bother or causing you trouble, just leave it. You don’t have to contact me’. And I’m going, ‘Of course I want to contact you.’ That’s when I first called my mum.”
The rest is history as he contacted his mother and realised that she wasn’t just alive but so was his twin brother Hassan. They, like the Olympic champion, thought that Mo Farah was dead, and his mother said she had no idea how her son ended up in the UK. But they eventually reunited when Farah was an adult, ending the story on a happy note.
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Firdows Matheen