A chemistry professor at Lund University in Sweden sent a team of mercenaries into a zone of war of the Islamic State (aka Isis) to free one of his doctoral students and his family. The case happened in 2014 but was only disclosed this week by the institution.
Charlotta Turner, professor of Analytical Chemistry, received a text message from her student, Firas Jumaah, saying that if he didn't come back to Switzerland in a week, she could drop him from the doctorate degree. The teacher became suspicious of the situation and found out that Firas and his family could be killed by the Islamic State.
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Jumaah voluntarily entered the war zone after his wife called to say the Isis fighters had taken over the village, killing all the men and taking the women to be slaves.
Firas and his family hid in an abandoned bleach factory as the sounds of gunfire from Isis terrorists reverberated around them. Jumaah, who is a native of Iraq, is a member of the Yazidi ethnic-religious group, an enemy of the Islamic State.
“I didn't have any hope,” Jumaah told Lund University's LUM magazine. “I was desperate. I just wanted to tell my supervisor what was going on. I had no idea that my teacher would be able to do anything for us.”
“My wife was in a total panic. Everyone was shocked by the behavior of the Islamic State,” he said. “I took the first plane to be with them. What kind of life would I have if something had happened to them there?”
Upon learning of the whole situation, Turner was not willing to let her student die without trying to do something. She got in touch with the university's then head of security, Per Gustafson, who gave her the idea for the rescue.
“It was almost like he was waiting for this kind of mission,” Turner said. “Per Gustafson said we had a transportation and security arrangement that spanned the entire world.”
During a few days of intense activity, Gustafson hired a security company who then organized the rescue operation.
A few days later, two vehicles carrying four heavily armed mercenaries entered the area where Jumaah was in hiding, and they took him to Erbil Airport, along with his wife and two young children.
“I have never felt so privileged,” Jumaah told LUM. "But at the same time I felt like a coward when I left my mother and sisters in that place."
Fortunately the rest of Jumaah's family survived the occupation and the student managed to complete his PhD and now works for a pharmaceutical company in Malmö. “It was a unique event. As far as I know, no other university has ever been involved in anything like this,” said Gustafson.