Far-right terror attack survivor and former X Factor contestant, Mo Abdi Farah, wants to get back to singing again

Admin · January 29, 2014

Mo, 21, hopes to represent Norway in Copenhagen with the song Heal. He lost his best friend, Ismail Haji Ahmed, on Utøya in July 2011. Photograph: Kim Erlandsen/NRK

A survivor of the 2011 Utøya massacre is vying to represent Norway in this year's Eurovision song contest, with a song inspired by his three-year struggle to recover.

Mohamed "Mo" Abdi Farah, 21, was on the point of a pop breakthrough in the summer of 2011, after winning the nation's heart with his performances in the country's X Factor talent show.

But that July he witnessed the brutal attack mounted by the far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik. Abdi has since been on disability benefits suffering from post-traumatic stress.

"I don't want to go into those sad days," Abdi said on Tuesday. "I just want to think positive and move forwards. My friends and family have really helped me and supported me and I want to make them proud."

The song Heal, an electro-pop ballad about getting back on your feet, has been written by Laila Samuelsen, who has penned songs for Norway's previous Eurovision hopefuls.

"The song's about taking your time to heal," Abdi said. "My goal is to inspire people and touch their hearts, that they should never, ever give up."

He is competing against 14 other acts to represent Norway in Copenhagen on 14 May. The country's Eurovision representative will be chosen on 15 March at the final of the Melodi Grand Prix talent show.

Abdi's best friend, Ismail Haji Ahmed, was one of the 69 people killed at the youth camp for Norway's Labour party on Utøya island.

The two met at a refugee reception centre shortly after Abdi arrived in Norway as a seven-year-old, fleeing the civil war in Somalia.

"You have good friends, and then you have someone who is your best, best friend. That was him," he told Norway's VG newspaper.

Ahmed, like Abdi, was a talented dancer and flamboyant dresser who, under the stage name Isma Brown, wowed TV audiences on Norway's Got Talent.

When Breivik began firing, Abdi leapt into the water and swam away from the island. He was picked up by a rescue boat.

"It's important to keep your good friends and family around you, and that's what I did," Abdi said about his recovery. "I kept myself around people who really love me. That's the main thing that really got me through these years, and of course all of my supporters who really encouraged me to come back. They were just waiting, and that's really special."

He said he had never felt pressured to get back to work by Sony Music, who signed a contract with him after he reached the X Factor final in 2010.

"I'm so thankful that they gave me time to heal and that they gave me time for myself, because I really needed it," he said. "I feel lucky."

The Labour party's annual youth camp brings together some of the country's brightest and best young men and women and several have found success since 2011.

In September, three of them – Fredric Holen Bjørdal (23), Stine Renate Håheim (29), and Åsmund Aukrust, (28) – were elected to Norway's parliament. The song Heal is released on 19 February.