EXCLUSIVE: British teenager, 14, trapped in Ethiopia feared ‘I might never go home again’

THE MIRROR|LONDON: A 14-year-old British girl was trapped abroad, fearing she might return home, after authorities took her passport and told her to ‘go back to Somalia ’.

But following an ordeal that lasted more than a week, Mahna Mohamed is now safely back home, thanks to The Mirror. After we stepped in, Foreign Office officials provided her with the necessary documentation to travel.

Manha was born in Leyton, London, and grew up, went to school and made friends in the capital.

Aged 12, she decided to travel to Somalia, where her parents were from, along with her mother to learn more about her family and culture.

Mahna spent two years in the country, before she went to make the trip back to her home in England.

But on the flight changeover, in the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia on October 25, the teenager was left shocked when border authorities in the country confiscated her passport and refused her onward travel.

Mahna told the Mirror: “We were coming from Somalia and we came to the airport for our flight, and we were going through passport control and they took my passport and looked at me and said ‘this is not the same person’.

“They passed it around to several people and they said ‘no this is not the same person’ and they took it off me,”.

Whilst staff at the airport refused the teenager onward travel, they encouraged her mum Aliya Ahmed, 47, to make the journey without Mahna, abandoning her.

The mum refused and the pair pushed to have their passport returned but was told it would be sent to the British embassy.

This kickstarted a hellish eight days that saw them sleeping on airport seats, running out of money and not knowing if Mahna would ever make it back home.

Airport staff at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport told Mahna to ‘go back to Somalia’ even though her home and life was in London.

The pair had little option but to travel to the British Embassy. This posed its own problem as the duo had little money, but were lent some by a kind stranger.

However on arriving at the embassy the mother and daughter were informed that Mahna’s passport wasn’t there either – leaving them in total limbo.

“When we got to the embassy they told us you can’t come here without an appointment and they hadn’t received my passport. They told us to go back to the airport but we didn’t have money to get back,” Mahna said.

The embassy eventually arranged a call with Mahna’s dad back in England, as she didn’t have a phone or internet access, and they were able to get some money transferred to them.

The mother and daughter made the trip back to the airport, but any staff they spoke to again said the passport wasn’t there and insisted it was at the embassy and that they would have to return in the morning.

But with nowhere to stay or money to afford a hotel, the pair spent the first of eight nights sleeping on airport chairs, feeling unsafe and afraid.

During this time, Mahna had no idea if she would ever make it back home to London, but the next day, Mahna spotted the airport staff member who originally took her passport.

When the 14-year-old girl confronted him, he once again insisted that he couldn’t give her her passport back, and then walked off, abandoning the Londoner.

Back at the embassy, they were asked to prove Mahna’s British citizenship so handed over her birth certificate showing she was born in Whipps Cross Hospital, and other evidence including school reports.

However Mahna said the embassy maintained she wasn’t British so were unable to help her. They did however offer help to her mother, who they admitted was British – but insisted her daughter was not.

Mahna said: “They [the embassy] told me to go back to Somalia but I’m not Somalian, I’m British. I’m from London. It’s been very difficult, sleeping here for the past eight days, you barely eat food, it’s not very good for my mental health.

“I’ve never gone through anything like this before … I’ve travelled a lot before and never ran into any problems.”

During their plight, Mahna’s uncle, Sakariyte Cismaan, spoke to The Mirror, saying: “The saddest part for me as an uncle is imagining how this child must feel like seeing her country fail her this way.

“I am not one to invoke race, but I can’t imagine a white child and her white mother being told that they are not really British because the photo on her new passport may not resemble her.

“This is the eighth day that they are at the airport and sleeping on rough chairs. With so many people working 24 hours at the airport, I can’t imagine how unsafe they must feel to fall asleep with strangers around.”

It wasn’t until after being contacted by The Mirror that the British authorities finally tried to help Mahna. A day after the Foreign Office was alerted to her situation, Mahna received her passport at the embassy after a brief 10 minute interview.

A UK government spokesperson said: “We are supporting a British woman and child in Ethiopia and are in contact with the local authorities.”

Then, the mother and daughter returned to the airport to make one more attempt at getting home.

One manager, aware of their situation, helped them rebook onto the next flight back to London, and they asked him to stay with them until they were onboard, fearing more problems, but he insisted they would be fine.

But once they hit immigration, the Ethiopian immigration informed them they had to pay for an exit visa for $50 per person, where they had to borrow the money again to afford.

Mahna described the uncomfortable situation of getting through passport control where they were repeatedly “laughed and mocked” by officials who took both their passports off them in turn and tried to refuse her entry once more.

Eventually, after Mahna pointed out she had been through the entire process of them claiming her passport wasn’t her own, they got through onto their flight.

Last Wednesday, after nine hellish days, the 14-year-old finally landed back in London, and returned home.

Whilst it remains unclear why the British embassy in Ethiopia never helped her more, or decided she wasn’t British, the Mirror understands the decision to confiscate her passport was taken by the Ethiopian authorities.

The British Embassy in Ethiopia was approached for comment but did not reply, while the Ethiopian authorities, Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and Ethiopian Airlines, all failed to respond to questions put to them by The Mirror over Mahna’s plight.