Muhammad Farah was sent to England to work.
The running star – who was not named Mohamed Farah – now recounts how he was taken advantage of when he was nine years old.
– I often locked myself in the bathroom and cried, he says in a BBC documentary.
Sir Mohamed “Moe” Farah, 39, has an almost track record with, among others, four Olympic golds and six World Cup golds.
When the 5000 and 10,000m King is a bit far from the glory days of his career, he chooses to talk about his hitherto unknown childhood.
– For several years I just closed it. But you can’t shut it down for any length of time, he says Mo Farah.
It’s a horrific story that was featured in a BBC documentary.
Send to England
Mo Farah says his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin and he was trafficked when he flew from Djibouti to England when he was nine years old.
He did not come from Somalia with his parents as he previously said, but his father was shot dead when Mo Farah was four years old and the rest of the family lived on a farm in the breakaway state of Somaliland.
Immediately in England, he had to take care of the children of another family, after he was met by an unknown woman. She had documents with her that showed a picture of himself next to the name “Mohamed Farah”.
She also took his family’s contact details from him and threw them away.
I tore them away from me and threw them in the trash. Then I knew I was in trouble, says Mo Farah in the documentary.
“You locked me up and cried”
He was forced to do housework and take care of children to get food.
– I often locked myself in the bathroom and cried, says Mo Farah.
Then he said that he attended school in the seventh grade and was finally able to move away from his new “family”. Instead, he was allowed to become an adopted child into a Somali family.
– I still miss my real family but from that moment on everything became better. I felt a huge weight lifting my shoulder and I felt like myself. That was when the real Mu-Mo came out, he says.