“Despite what I’ve said before, my parents never lived in the UK,” Farah told the BBC. He says the family “fell apart” after his father was killed in the civil war when he was just four years old. Somaliland declared independence in 1991 when it seceded from war-torn Somalia, but has never been recognized as a sovereign state. “I was separated from my mother and brought to the UK illegally under the name of another child called Mohamed Farah,” he said in an excerpt of the interview. The four-time Olympic gold medalist was either eight or nine when he was taken to the UK by a woman he had never met before, he said. Once she arrived, she says she was forced to “do housework and take care of the children.” Several years later, he was finally allowed to enroll in school, where he confided in a PE teacher about his condition. The teacher contacted social services and Farah was moved to a Somali foster family. “I still missed my real family, but everything got better from that moment on,” she tells the BBC. Farah, who was granted British citizenship in 2000, says running saved him from a life of slavery. CNN has reached out to Farah’s representatives for comment.
