Mo Farah has revealed that he was smuggled into the United Kingdom as a child.
The long-distance runner has delivered the revelation to the BBC in a new documentary entitled The Real Mo Farah, in which he explains his real is Hussein Abdi Kahin and he is from Somaliland.
Aged nine at the time, he was brought into the country illegally from Djibouti by a woman he had never met and took the name of another child called Mohamed Farah.
This was before he was made to look after another family's children.
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The Olympic gold medal-winning and record-holding British track athlete has previously said he came to the UK from Somalia with his parents as a refugee but, in reality, his parents have never spent any time there; his mother and two brothers still live on their family farm in the breakaway state of Somaliland.
His father was killed by stray gunfire amid the civil violence in Somalia when Farah was just four years old.
The region of Somaliland declared independence in 1991 but is not internationally recognised.
The woman who helped traffic Farah to the UK told him he was being taken to Europe to live with relatives there.
She told him to say his name was Mohamed and used fake travel documents that showed his photo next to the name "Mohamed Farah".
When they arrived in Britain, Farah says the woman took him to her flat in Hounslow in west London and took a piece of paper off of him that had his relatives' contact details.
"Right in front of me, she ripped it up and put it in the bin. At that moment, I knew I was in trouble," he says, before stating he was made to do housework and childcare "if [he] wanted food in [his] mouth".
He also recounts the woman telling him: "If you ever want to see your family again, don't say anything."
"For years I just kept blocking it out," the Team GB athlete says, "but you can only block it out for so long", confessing that he would regularly lock himself in the bathroom and cry.
You can watch The Real Mo Farah on BBC One at 9pm on Wednesday, 13 July. A trailer for the documentary can be watched below.
