Famous Refugees

Mo Farah

A long- and middle-distance runner. Mo Farah was born on 23 March 1983 in Mogadishu in Somalia. He spent the early years of his childhood in Djibouti and moved to Britain when he was eight years old to join his father. He spoke very little English. At the London 2012 Olympics, he won a gold medal for the 10,000 metres and 5,000 metres and in March 2015, he broke the European record for the half marathon in Lisbon.

Anne Frank

Anne Frank is famous for the diary that she kept from 12 June 1942 until 4 August 1944. She was a Jewish girl, born on 12 June 1929 in Frankfurt, Germany. Her family moved to Holland in 1933 when the Nazis came to power. On 6 July 1942, Anne and her family, along with four other families, went into hiding. She wrote a diary about her life in hiding, which can be read today.

Rita Ora

Rita was born in Yugoslavia (present-day Kosovo) to Albanian parents in 1990. A year later, her family was forced to flee their home country. Escaping persecution, they sought out a new life in London. she shares her story…

“When the conflict started in what is now former Yugoslavia, my parents made the difficult decision to leave. Thousands were killed in the brutal decade-long war, and more than one million people were forced to flee, including my parents, with me and my siblings in tow.

My mom was a psychiatrist and my dad an economist. They left behind their whole lives and had to start from scratch when they arrived in London as refugees. But protecting us was their main priority and I count my blessings every day that they did what they did”