First picture of woman who brought Mo Farah into UK with falsified visa

THIS is the first picture of Nimco Farah — the woman at the centre of the Mo Farah trafficking claims.

The 54-year-old has told her family she brought the future running star into Britain on a falsified visa but said she was coerced into it and denied treating him like a slave when they got to London.

Speaking to The Sun on Sunday via her son Ahmed, Nimco claimed the young Mo’s arrival was down a last-minute change of plan.

He says she was told her visa had three children on it.

So when a third child dropped out she brought Sir Mo, now 39, instead — meaning the then nine-year-old future Olympic champion arrived under a false name.

Talking for the first time after revelations by Sir Mo in a BBC programme, Ahmed, 33, said: “My mum didn’t do anything wrong.

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“She was a young woman with two young children and she said she was given a paper and told, ‘Bring this person’. She was coerced.

“She was told ‘if you only take two children and there are three children on the visa, they are not going to let you into the country’.

“My mum said that she risked everything for him to come with us and treated him like her own son just to be accused of these terrible things.”

The real Mohamed Farah was left behind in East Africa while the boy who took his name went on to become one of the greatest British sportsmen of all time.

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Nimco also told Ahmed she was sold a sob story that Sir Mo — who last week revealed his real name is Hussein Abdi Kahin — had a severe burn that needed NHS treatment in the UK.

Ahmed said his mum has vowed to fight allegations she was involved in trafficking Sir Mo from Djibouti to London in 1991 and forcing him into domestic slavery.

The Met Police are investigating the claims.

Ahmed added: “She was living in Djibouti with her husband, my dad, Mukhtar Farah, who had emigrated to London, and he arranged for UK visas so she could join him with my elder brother Wahib and me.

“She said my dad also arranged for a visa for his oldest son from his first marriage — that’s the real Mohamed Farah — who was living in Nairobi in Kenya at the time.”

But for reasons not fully explained, Mohamed could not join them in time for the flight and a plan was hatched to bring another child in his place.

Nimco told Ahmed her mother Aisha, who died in 2005, was instrumental in pushing forward Hussein — who became Sir Mo.

He was living with an uncle in Djibouti having fled the civil war in Somalia.

Ahmed added: “It wasn’t her idea, she said she was just told that was the best way to make sure we all got through passport control when we landed at Heathrow.”

Nimco, the three children and her husband Mukhtar, lived in a council estate flat in Hounslow, West London, where Sir Mo said he was forced to cook, clean and bathe the other youngsters.

She separated from Mukhtar in the mid-1990s, before moving to nearby Southall where she raised her sons Wahib, 35, Ahmed, 33, and Mahad, 27.

By then, Sir Mo had gone to live with another woman called Kinsi whom he regarded as an aunt.

Nimco’s English is limited so she spoke out through Ahmed, who was deported for a knife crime in 2016 and now lives in Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa, where he works as a taxi driver.

He reveals he found out about the family secret when he was nine — and is still in touch with the real Mohamed Farah, now 40 and trying to start a new life in Europe.

‘SHE RISKED EVERYTHING’

He said: “There’s no way that my mum knew anything that was going on.

“It was not like she grabbed a kid from the side of the street and put him on the plane.

“Hussein had an accident where his arm was burnt with scalding water or something. My grandmother said, ‘There are no good doctors here so take this young man so he can stay with you and get treatment’.

“There was no one saying, ‘You are going to be our slave and do the dishes’.

“I have a very clear memory of my childhood. We would all be told, ‘Go clean your room’, and given chores like in any other house — everyone had to pull their weight.

“Mum treated Mo like her own son and we would play together all the time. I was nine years old when I found out he wasn’t my real brother.

“Dad told me, ‘That’s not your brother, your brother is in Kenya’, and he passed the phone to me to say hi. Can you imagine how that feels?

“I felt bad for the real Mo, as he was left in Africa and didn’t have much growing up,

“But at the same time I was always so proud of Hussein and considered him my brother. I thought, ‘The person that came in Mohamed’s place has done the family proud’.”

In the Real Mo Farah documentary on BBC One, the Olympic athlete explained that he was four when his mum sent him away from Somaliland to escape the bombing after his dad Abdi was killed in the civil war.

Sir Mo recalled boarding a plane with a woman, not named by the BBC but reported to be Nimco, and her two sons after being told he was going to stay with relatives in Europe.

Arriving at Heathrow, he said the woman presented a visa with his photo but not his name and told him to call himself ‘Mohamed’.

He claimed the woman later forced him into a life of domestic slavery, carrying out chores in their home in London, and banned him from playing with the other children.

Sir Mo, who was knighted in 2017, said: “I had all the contact details for my relatives and once we got to her house, the lady took it off me and right in front of me ripped them up and put it in the bin and at that moment I knew I was in trouble.”

Sir Mo, who has chosen to keep using the false name, says he escaped only when he was sent to live with Mukhtar’s sister, Kinsi, in Hanworth, South West London.

Sarah Rennie, Mo’s form tutor at Feltham Community College, told the BBC he came to school “unkempt and uncared for”, spoke little English and was an “emotionally and culturally alienated child”.

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When a young Mo confided in his former PE teacher Alan Watkinson, he helped get him fostered and to apply for British citizenship so he could run for his adopted country.

Sir Mo later tracked down his mum, also called Aisha, and twin brother Hassan in Somaliland — but fears he might have been sold into slavery by a family member.

Source: Athletics - thesun.co.uk