Meet the twin brother Mo Farah was separated from during Somalia war

London, August 19 (ANI): Olympic champion Mo Farah's twin brother Hassan has narrated the harrowing story that led to their separation as boys amid the chaos of civil war in Somalia.

The boys had been forced to say goodbye at the age of eight when their parents made the agonising decision to send three of their six children, including Farah to Britain for a chance of a better life.

"When Mo was sent away I was left with an empty space in my heart. That space has never been filled, but he is still somewhere in my heart and I know I am in his," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

The world class athlete's twin said that like many other Somali families they too were torn apart by war.

Hassan believes that the brothers can never make up the lost years spent apart.

When the 29-year-old athlete triumphed with gold in the 10,000m, his brother was one of the first people he called.

"He told me, 'Pray for me, my brother. I have great hopes that I can win a second gold. It is what I've waited for all this time'," he revealed.

Farah and Hassan were born in Somalian capital Mogadishu in March 1983, at the beginning of relentlessly troubled times for the beleaguered city.

For Farah and Hassan's parents, the disintegration of their country after 1990 meant harsh and agonising decisions.

The boys' mother Amran received news from her husband Mukhtar in England that, as an asylum seeker, he could bring their kids over to join him but there was a catch as he could take only three - as many as he could afford to support.

Farah and Hassan were told that only one of the twins could go with their elder brothers Liban and Omar.

"They found a way to soften it, to make it seem as if it would be all right.

"My grandmother told us that Mo would be going, getting on a train to Addis Ababa then on a plane to England. I would have to wait but one day I would join him," he said.

Hassan while remembering the night when the brothers bid goodbye to each other, said: "It was my bedtime, and there was all this fuss with him leaving the house and taking his things, getting into a car. I was OK because they kept saying I would be with him again soon. "

Several years went by in Djibouti, with Hassan receiving continual but empty reassurances that he and his brother would be reunited and it was not until 12 years later, in 2003, that Farah finally came back to Somalia for a visit. (ANI)