The evacuation of Yazidis continued close to Mount Sinjar in northern Iraq on Wednesday.
Video footage from the Iraqi Ministry of Defence showed mostly women and children being picked up by a military helicopter before being taken to an undisclosed location.
The Iraqi air force also dropped food and water as tens of thousands of people who remain stranded on the mountain.
Further aid supplies have been dropped from US military planes over the past few nights.
The minority Yazidi group are just one of the communities who’ve been driven out of their villages by advancing Islamic State (IS) fighters in recent weeks.
They claim that scores of people have been murdered by extremists wanting to ‘purify’ Iraq from non-Islamic influences.
“They have taken thousands of our girls and women. Islamic State has taken them,” said refugee Khazi Saleh.
Another displaced Yazidi, Khudher Eid added: “We left for the Sinjar Mountain and the Islamic State militants came after us. They killed young
people and women, telling us all of you have
to convert to Islam.”
Many of the refugees have taken up to two weeks to reach safe parts of Iraqi Kurdistan or Syria by foot or road, avoiding attacks by IS militants on the way.
Despair turned to anger in the northern Kurdish city of Duhok on Wednesday, where several hundred displaced people protested on the streets, demanding more international support for their plight.
Their banners read ‘Save Yazidis from genocide”.
