Sudanese American Soccer Tournament and Community Festival draws emigrants from all over U.S. to Colorado

Throughout Labor Day weekend at Aurora Sports Park, the joy and sense of community were everywhere.

The Sudanese American Soccer Federation held its national tournament in the area along with a two-day community festival with the theme of "hope, healing and hospitality."

"This is the first time it is being held in Denver, Colorado," said Mohamed Elhage, who helped bring the event to the area.

Elhage is a part of the SASF and has seen the tournament and festival typically hosted on the East Coast but wanted to help bring it to Colorado, where roughly 10,000 Sudanese American families reside. Colorado 2024 brought members of the diaspora from all over the country -- and even outside the U.S. -- to the Denver metro area.

"We have Sudanese from about 15-16 states and the local community as well," he said.

"I'm coming from Virginia," Yasin, a young Sudani American told CBS News Colorado. He came with his friend Mo, also from Virginia, who was competing in the soccer tournament.

"It's just very fun to be around other Sudani people," explained Yasin. "This is why we came. He told me he was playing and I just kind of tagged along."

While spectators sat, drank coffee and watched the soccer being played on the main two fields of the Sports Park, the smell of delicious Sudani food wasn't far away. Amel Ahmed, a resident of Denver, and other women had been cooking nonstop throughout the weekend.

"They love our food and that is what we want," she said. "We want to present our cultures, our food."

"We did all this at home," exclaimed Smila Abdulla, proudly. "Homemade!"

And everything carried a taste from home and was unmistakably Sudani.

Green mullah, a staple dish of the region -- comprised of spinach and okra -- is poured over Kisla, a type of fermented flatbread. You eat with your hands, peeling off a piece of the Kisla, dipping it in the Mullah and enjoying it as a sort of dip. There are sweets everywhere including Basbousa, a type of semolina cake adorned with almonds in the center of each piece. In the parking lot, the smell is unmistakable: grilled chicken, beef and plenty of lamb. For many, it's a taste of community. 

"It also helps people connect after the war started and it's a positive way for people to forget about the war," said Denver teenager Rafa Elamani.

For Sudanese American members of the diaspora, it's been a long year watching, waiting and worrying about home as an ongoing civil war has engulfed much of the country.

"It's very good to see a lot of Sudanese here since the war started," explains Hatim, who stopped by CBS Colorado's camera crew to make sure the message of unity in wartime was being relayed. "A lot of Sudanese can get together. It feels like a big happy family right now."

"Being able to come together has been, in my eyes, a way for us to heal just a little bit," adds Wafa Saeed, a community organizer for the Sudanese American community in Denver.

She helped put together one of the last events of the weekend: a panel discussion of Sudanese Americans of all ages, discussing their varying experiences in America and how to become a part of a new culture while staying true to your original one. 

"My generation -- yes, I was born in Sudan, but I grew up here -- I can be both," Saeed explained. "And there's richness in being both. Because you get to choose the goodness in both to bring the best in yourself."

It cost roughly $170,000 to put on the event over the weekend and Financial Chief Imad Mustafa said that almost all of the fundraising was community-driven. 

"I would say 99% or more of what we get is almost entirely from the Sudanese community," he said. "They support us."

"This is healing for all of us," adds Amel Ahmed as she serves food to an ever-growing line of families ready for a final dinner at the festival. "Being together and other communities and even other communities from other states."

In keeping with the theme of "hope, healing and hospitality," there's a window into a brief moment of joy for a group of people who have spent much of the last year mourning the loss of homes and family members.

The casualty numbers vary wildly, with between 15,000 and 150,000 people killed in the Sudanese Civil War, with over 7 million internally displaced and 2 million more leaving to other countries.

Saeed said that family members in Sudan have had to become refugees in other African nations and that while she and her family referred to the United States as her "second home," it is now their only home as Sudan has devolved into a battlefield.

But that's not the Sudan Saeed knows, she told CBS News Colorado. And amid that grief and worry, the two-day festival in Aurora is the window into her country and culture that she wants the world to see. 

"Sudan is not all war," she said. "Sudan is not all conflict. There is beauty in the people. There is beauty in the culture and just being able to take two days out of our lives to celebrate ourselves."