An Iraqi minister has claimed Islamic State militants have killed at least 500 members of Iraq’s Yazidi community, burying some of them alive.

Iraq’s human rights minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, told Reuters that the Iraqi government have ‘striking evidence’ that the Islamic State had ‘executed at least 500 Yazidis after seizing Sinjar’.

“We spoke to some of the Yazidis who fled from Sinjar. We have dozens of accounts and witness testimonies describing painful scenes of how Islamic State fighters arrived and took girls from their families by force to use them as slaves,” Mr. Sudani said.

"Some of the victims, including women and children were buried alive in scattered mass graves in and around Sinjar," Sudani said.

Sudani also claimed that roughly 300 women had been kidnapped as slaves.

The US and UK have been undertaking humanitarian drops to the Yazidi population who had fled to the mountains to escape the Islamic State forces that attacked their homes a week ago. The US has undertaken several limited air strikes on IS forces, although President Barack Obama insists that while the US will offer assistance, the Iraqi government must resolve the issue themselves.

IS had set a deadline today for 300 Yazidi families to convert to Islam or face death. It is not yet clear if these victims are related to that threat.