Olympic great Mo Farah expressed relief on Wednesday after he received full support from the British government despite his admission that he was illegally smuggled into Britain as a child. The revelation in a new BBC documentary could have raised questions about Farah’s British citizenship, but the Home Office said it took no action. A spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “He is a sporting hero, he is an inspiration to people across the country. It is a shocking reminder of the horrors people face when trafficked. And we must continue to address it.” of these criminals who take advantage of vulnerable people.”
The 39-year-old distance runner, one of Britain’s best-loved and most successful athletes, revealed that his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin, and he was forced to work in domestic servitude after leaving the country at the age of eight or nine. had come in.
London’s Metropolitan Police said it was “assessing” charges that Farah was trafficked after his mother sent him away to escape civil war in their native Somalia.
Asked in a follow-up interview on BBC radio how he felt about the government’s response, Farah said: “I feel relieved: this is my country.
“No child wants to be in that situation. I made that choice for me,” he said.
“And I’m just grateful (for) every opportunity I got in Britain and… proud to represent my country the way I did because that’s all I could do, in my control. I had no control when I was younger. †
Farah was later helped to obtain British citizenship by his school physical education teacher, Alan Watkinson, while still using the false name Mohamed Farah given to him by a woman who trafficked him to Britain.
“I don’t think Alan did anything wrong there,” the athlete told BBC radio.
“Alan went to social services. We reported it, we told them exactly my name… So we went through the right channels, but I don’t know why nothing was ever done,” he said.
Rather than move to the UK as a refugee from Somalia with his mother and two of his brothers to join his IT consultant father, as previously claimed, Farah said he came from Djibouti with the woman he had never met before. had met, and then had to take care of another family’s children.
In fact, he said, his father was killed in civil unrest in Somalia when Farah was four years old and his mother, Aisha, and two brothers live in the breakaway state of Somaliland.
He was encouraged to speak out now by his wife and children, after burying the truth for decades.
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“I honestly don’t want to talk about it because I told myself I would never talk about it. I’m going to lock it up,” he said.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)
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