Zincirli - Fevzipaşa - İslahiye disaster relief

In the terrible earthquake in southeast Türkiye on February 6, 2023, thousands of people lost their lives, thousands more were wounded, and countless people lost their homes and livelihoods. Since 2006, the people of Islahiye district, and especially of Fevzipaşa and Zincirli, have welcomed and supported the University of Chicago and University of Tübingen excavations at Zincirli Höyük and over a hundred foreign archaeologists and students who worked there.

Now our friends urgently need our help. Some of our friends lost their lives and many more are homeless and have lost all their possessions. Both Zincirli village and Fevzipaşa sustained severe damage with many homes entirely collapsed. The goal of this fundraiser is to directly help people connected to the excavation and their families recover from the disaster and rebuild their homes and their lives.

The money will be distributed to these families in consultation with local people who know where it is most needed, in particular the Zincirli site guard Faruk Bolat. I am the co-director of the Chicago-Tübingen Excavations at Zincirli (https://zincirli.uchicago.edu) and have worked directly with hundreds of residents of Zincirli, Fevzipaşa, and other villages in Islahiye district for 16 years. Since our friends in Zincirli and Fevzipaşa, as non-US residents, can't be registered as direct beneficiaries of this fundraiser, I will be collecting the money raised and transferring it to our local contacts in Turkey through Wise. They can then more easily distribute money where it is needed by bank transfer or in cash. We will update this page with more details on beneficiaries as we have more information on where the money is most urgently needed.

Please share this appeal with friends, family, and colleagues, and if you can, please consider also donating to local and international disaster relief funds. The scale of the disaster is unfathomable.