IRAQ. Mount Sinjar. August 12, 2014. A Kurdish fighter rushes to the aid of an Iraqi air force crew member who was wounded in a helicopter crash in Mount Sinjar. The helicopter had flown from Dohuk, in Iraqi Kurdistan, to the mountain to rescue beseiged Yazidi citizens. The Yazidis were fleeing persecution at the hands of Islamist extremists who had recently taken over their hometowns in Iraq's Ninevah province. In the high grounds of Mount Sinjar, thousands of Yazidis found safety from ISIS, but also the risk of dying from hunger and thirst.