COMMERCE CITY — Among the 750,000 refugees who fled Eritrea in the 1980s was 11-year-old Meb Keflezghi, who immigrated to San Diego, became a citizen and competed in four Olympics for the U.S. while becoming one of the greatest American distance runners ever.
That mass migration caused by the Eritrea’s 30-year civil war with Ethiopia also included the parents of Rapids midfielder Mohammed Saeid, who left their impoverished homeland on the Horn of Africa in 1989. First they went to Sudan, then Saudi Arabia, Italy, Norway and ultimately Sweden, where Saeid grew up.
“They were thinking for a better life for their family,” said Saeid, who came to the Rapids last month from Minnesota.