In 2014, Lund University chemistry professor Charlotta Turner helped rescue her doctoral student Firas Jumaah and his family after they became trapped by an Islamic State offensive in northern Iraq.

Jumaah, a Yazidi from Iraq, had remained in Sweden to complete laboratory work while his wife and two children traveled to Iraq for a family wedding. As ISIS attacked Yazidi communities, killing men and enslaving women, he flew to Iraq to bring his family back. But closed borders and the advancing militants left them unable to escape.

While the family hid in a disused bleach factory, Jumaah sent Turner a text asking her to remove him from the doctoral program if he had not returned within a week. Turner called him, heard how desperate the situation had become and sought help from the university’s security chief, Per Gustafson.

Gustafson hired a security company to arrange an evacuation. Within days, four armed contractors in two vehicles reached Jumaah, his wife and their children and took them to Erbil Airport. Jumaah said he felt privileged to be rescued but also guilty about leaving his mother and sisters behind. They survived the ISIS occupation.

Back in Sweden, Jumaah completed his PhD and later found work at a pharmaceutical company in Malmö. His family has nearly repaid Lund University for the rescue. Gustafson described the operation as a unique intervention by a university.