Mesopotamia Relief Foundation

Mesopotamia Relief Foundation was founded in 2019 to address the situation of the Assyrian villages of the Khabur River valley in northeastern Syria, which were taken over by ISIS in 2015, forcing most residents to flee. For now we are working primarily on agricultural projects in the Khabur Valley, but we are also concerned with cultural preservation. In 2020, we received a grant from the JM Kaplan Fund to monitor the online black market for antiquities, with a focus on items stolen from northeastern Syria. We believe that the preservation of the cultural heritage of northeastern Syria is in line with the humanitarian goals of our organization, and will continue to work on projects to that end, though our primary focus will remain on helping individuals and communities recover from war. We do not discriminate based on religion or politics, and seek to provide support to all in need in northeastern Syria. However, because of the particular needs within the Christian and other minority communities, who were directly and deliberately targeted by ISIS, we are largely focusing our efforts in these communities. To start, we are working in the Assyrian Christian villages of the Khabur, but hope to expand in the future to other areas, including the Yezidi and Syriac Christian villages east of Qamishli along the Turkish border. We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.

Board of Trustees

• Sam Sweeney
• Eduardo Andino
• Michael Dinsmore