IRAQ. Mount Sinjar. August 12, 2014. Wounded survivors of an Iraqi airforce helicopter crash lay near the crash site in Mount Sinjar. The survivors were Yazidis fleeing religious persecution at the hands of Islamist extremists who had taken over their hometowns in Iraq's Nineveh province. In the high grounds of Mount Sinjar, they had found safety from ISIS but risked dying of hunger and thirst. The crash survivors were eventually rescued by a second helicopter, which airlifted them to Dohuk in Iraqi Kurdistan.