In the course of their second Northern Iraq offensive in August 2014, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took over large areas of Nineveh province. Following the withdrawal of the Kurdish Peshmerga they captured the city of Sinjar on 3 August. During the following days, IS militants perpetrated the Sinjar massacre, killing 2,000 Yazidi men and taking Yazidi women into slavery, leading to a mass exodus of Yazidi residents. According to a United Nations report, 5,000 Yazidi civilians were killed during ISIL's August offensive. It is also known as the genocide of Yazidis by ISIL. The genocide was enabled partly as a result of the Peshmerga flight from the ISIL offensive, which left the Yazidis defenseless.