Ernestos was created in Aleppo Syria, in 2015 after 4 years of civil war. The original sanctuary was formed when Aleppo was under fierce bombing by the regime. Originally set up as a first aid and feeding sanctuary, the bombing became horrendous and in 2015 the area fell to advancing troops. The 100 or so cats we helped were mostly lost to gas, bombing and displacement.

We were forced to leave Aleppo and start again in NW Syria where today we have over 2500 resident cats at the cat sanctuary. Mostly abandoned, or disabled or victims of cruelty.

Our farm sanctuary cares for mainly dogs (35) 4 donkeys, 1 horse and 5 monkeys.

We have a clinic at our cat sanctuary, and we are the only Free veterinary clinic in Idlib.

We have overcome beliefs about neutering and spaying and now spay/neuter around 90 cats/ dogs every month as well as treating all types of animals here. These include dogs,cats,birds,equines,wildlife, zoo animals, small mammals- no animal is ever turned away. Our services are in great demand as our vets team are competent in the care of small animals and not just agricultural animals.

One of our vets now lectures at the University to veterinary students, in small animal care - and our clinic is used for students and vets to be able to watch neutering, spaying, caesarean sections , enucleations bone pinning, xray work and blood laboratory readings and diagnosis.

We have support from a German based charity Welttierschutzgesellschaft e.V. (WTG) to cover some costs of running the free clinic and they have generously funded some mobile clinic work for us. With their support we are treating upto 650 animals a month at the Free Clinic.

Other costs - for farm sanctuary, mobile ambulance visits, clinics, food, rent, vaccines, medicines and the 1001 other things we need - are possible only because of the generosity of our donors from all over the world.

We also vaccinate against rabies which is endemic here, and have vaccinated street dog colonies against this killer.

We offer rabies and antiviral vaccine campaigns to pet cats and dogs and rabies vaccinate the street dogs by government permission.

Our desire is to work to improve animal welfare in Syria for all animals and bring compassion and care and legislation into these lives.