How one Swedish professor rescued her Iraqi student from IS militants during Yazidi genocide

A Swedish university professor rescued one of her students from the Islamic State group as the jihadists overran northern Iraq in 2014.

The unlikely story was revealed in a report by Lund University's magazine on Thursday.

Chemistry professor Charlotta Turner organised for an armed security force to rescue her student Firas Jumaah, who had returned to his native Iraq to save his wife and children from the militant group.

Jumaa's family, who are members of the Yazidi religious minority, had travelled to the country to attend a wedding as the group launched an offensive into the minority's stronghold of Sinjar.

According to a translation of the report by Swedish news website The Local, Jumaah texted his professor to tell her that they were holed up in a disused factory attempting to hide from the jihadist assault.

"I was desperate. I just wanted to tell my supervisor what was happening. I had no idea that a professor would be able to do anything for us," Jumaa was quoted as saying.

Turner then contacted the university's security chief who hired a private security company to carry out the rescue operation.

"A few days later two Landcruisers carrying four heavily-armed mercenaries roared into the area where Jumaah was hiding, and sped him away to Erbil Airport together with his wife and two small children," the report said.

IS captured large swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in 2014, proclaiming a "caliphate" in land it controlled. Thousands of Yazidi men were killed in the assault, which the United Nations has called a genocide.

The group abducted thousands of Yazidi women and girls, who were tortured, raped and sold as sexual slaves by the jihadists.

Since the rescue, Jumaa completed his studies in Sweden and now works in a pharmaceuticals company in the southern city of Malmo.

His family in Iraq managed to escape capture but their homes were raised by the militants. Jumaa and his family are still paying back the university for the rescue.