In 2014, Lund University chemistry professor Charlotta Turner helped rescue her doctoral student Firas Jumaah and his family from an Islamic State offensive against Iraq’s Yazidi minority.

Jumaah, a Yazidi, had returned to Iraq after his wife and two young children traveled there for a family wedding. As ISIS attacked Sinjar and nearby areas, killing and enslaving thousands of Yazidis, the family struggled to escape. Borders were closing, refugees were fleeing, and ISIS fighters were advancing toward them.

Fearing he might not survive, Jumaah texted Turner to say she should assume he would not finish his thesis if he failed to return within a week. When Turner called him, she learned that the family was in a desperate situation and preparing to hide. She told him not to give up and sought help from Lund University’s security chief, Per Gustafson.

Gustafson arranged for a security company to carry out a rescue. Armed personnel reached Jumaah and his family and drove them to Erbil Airport. Although relieved, Jumaah felt guilty about leaving his mother and sisters behind; they later survived the occupation.

Jumaah returned to Sweden, completed his PhD and went on to work for a pharmaceutical company in Malmö. His family has almost finished repaying the university for the rescue, which Gustafson described as a unique operation.