How they were separated aged eight by their parents’ agonising decision
empty reassurances that he and Mo would be reunited. It was not until 12 years later, in 2003, that Mo finally came back to Somalia for a visit. To this day Hassan has never been to England.
He has watched as his brother began to get the recognition he deserved as a potential star. Back in dusty, poor Djibouti, Hassan – despite his identical genes and potential – had not the remotest chance of athletic success, though he was just as good a runner as his brother.
‘Of course Mo and I were on a par as runners,’ he said. ‘Sometimes I would beat him as we chased each other around, sometimes he would beat me. But now he has had the most technically-advanced training and advice available in the world, with top running tracks and gyms to work in, and I have had nothing.
‘Who knows what I could have become? We could have been famous twin Olympic athletes. I couldn’t help thinking about that when I was watching him in the races on television. But he’s my brother, I love him and I rejoice in his great successes.’
As a teenager Hassan returned to Hargeisa and was reunited with his extended family. He lived with an aunt and did well at school. He married and now has five beautiful children. Life in Hargeisa is hard and sometimes chaotic – donkeys, goats and camels wander the streets and unemployment is rife, with most families living on money sent to them from relatives abroad.
But Hassan, bright and ambitious, is a successful telecommunications engineer with a steady job. His modest home is carpeted and nicelyfurnished and he provides well for his family. ‘Mo’s wife is expecting twins, we hear,’ he says with a smile. ‘Maybe if my wife and I keep trying we can have a set of twins too. That would be good.’
Last week Hassan’s mother was visiting him and they will celebrate the Islamic feast of Eid together.
Her village, the tiny homestead of Iranka Deriyanka – which Hassan, Mo and their siblings all consider home – is several hours’ drive through scrubby desert west of Hargeisa town past several police checkpoints.
Last week I made the long hot journey to the village, accompanied by two armed soldiers in uniform.
One of them explained: ‘We can’t go there in four-wheel drive vehicles, with white people, without potential trouble. It could be youths throwing rocks at us, or worse. It could be trouble at checkpoints. We need to be careful.’
We were to be accompanied by the important tribal chief of the Habar Awal sub-clan of the dominant Issaq people, Boqor Muhumed Geele Sed. He welcomed us when we stopped at his house in Gabiley town.
He said: ‘We are overjoyed at our son Mo’s success, he is a hero to us. We want to rename his little village Mo Farah Village, we want him to come home to us often and support our people.
‘He has already brought happiness to our lives. Many people walked six kilometres to watch him race in the Olympics. They have no electricity and they had to get to the nearest place with a television.
‘Mo Farah is a great son of Somalia. He ran with the British flag but he belongs to our nation and we know he loves us.’
Mo has already launched a charitable foundation to help Somali youth develop sporting skills, but the task of permanently changing lives in this remote part of the world would be overwhelming for him.
AS WE drove into the scrubby desert, wheels spinning in the muddy clay, donkeys and goats scattering, we came across a group of families working on their maize crop. The women in brightly-coloured hijabs performed an impromptu celebration dance at the mention of Mo Farah’s name, and their children raced around like budding athletes, desperate to emulate their hero. Two young women approached us. ‘We want Mo’s success to help change our lives,’ they said. ‘We want the world to see us and the hard way we have to live. We have no hospital or clinic, many women bleed to death in childbirth in the fields.
‘There are no schools and no roads, and the women walk for miles every day to fetch water from wells.’
The community is spread out in tiny homesteads, roughly fenced off from wandering livestock by hedges of dried branches. Their traditional aqal – round huts fashioned from branches – are covered at this time of year with multi-coloured plastic sheeting to keep out torrential rain.
Inside there are home-woven rugs, a dirt floor and mattresses.
Cooking is done over an open fire outside, and the staple diet is maizemeal porridge.
At Mo’s own tiny family homestead – where his mother and two sisters live, tending their goats and cows to sell at market – one of his sisters, Nimo, barefoot in her hijab, was carrying her two-year-old son who has polio. It’s a disease virtually forgotten in the West but blights this community because there is limited access to vaccinations.
Nimo said: ‘Life is so hard here. We love this land and we belong here but it is hard just to survive. We need schools and better healthcare. We want more for our children. We hope Mo’s success will mean he can help us.’
In the fields nearby her brother Faisal, the eldest of Mo’s siblings, was working with his tractor, the pride of the community and a gift from Mo. It trundles to market days in Gabiley, towing a trailer with live- stock for sale. Mo’s mother Amran is a slightly built woman in her forties with the same huge tell-tale smile as her famous son. She wears traditionally modest Muslim clothes in patterned red and green silk and is shy of visitors and reluctant to speak.
She and Hassan have found it hard to talk about the decision that tore the brothers apart, but she says: ‘I would love to see my twin boys together again, of course I would. I can’t talk about what happened all those years ago, I would just love to see them getting together at last.
‘I hope Mo will visit us here soon, or I can go to England with Hassan to see him. That would be wonderful. I am so full of pride I feel I could burst with happiness at Mo’s success. He’s my wonderful son, my hero.’
In a country where traditional courts and Sharia law dictate that the killing of a man can be appeased with a payment of 20 camels by the perpetrator, but the killing of a woman attracts only 10 camels, it was almost certainly not Mo’s mother who made the critical decision to take him away from his twin.
This week, she was asked on Somali television to talk about Hassan and says, poignantly: ‘His twin Hassan is a bright man too, a good runner like his brother, but he just didn’t have the same opportunities.’
Today there is no bitterness from Hassan – just deep sadness – and he has been touched by a statement from Mo’s tough training coach.
‘He said that Mo had more heart, more guts and more soul than any other athlete he had ever met.’
Hassan added: ‘We share the same genes.
‘I would love to hear someone say that about me.’