FAR fewer refugees remain stranded on Iraq’s Sinjar Mountain as Western airstrikes reduce the need for a rescue mission, the US has said.

A team of US military personnel assessed the situation and ­reported that only several thousand refugees remained on the mountain and that they appeared to be in relatively good condition, the Pentagon said. Tens of thousands had been reported on the mountain last week.

The UN refugee agency has said tens of thousands of civilians, many of them members of the Yazidi religious minority, were marooned on Mount Sinjar by jihad­ists from the Islamic State, which has overrun large swathes of Iraq and Syria.

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US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel credited airdrops of food and water for sustaining those on the mountain and airstrikes for pushing back militants and allowing refugees to leave.

“As a result of that assessment, I think it’s ... far less likely now that we would undertake any kind of specific humanitarian rescue mission that we have been planning,” Mr Hagel said. “That doesn’t mean that we won’t.”

Iraq remains a troubled country, Mr Hagel said, but he called the assessment of Sinjar Mountain a bit of good news. Of the Western effort in Iraq, he said: “It’s not over. It’s not complete.”

Attacks across Iraq’s north and west by the Islamic State group and its Sunni militant allies have displaced members of the Christian and Yazidi communities and threatened neighbouring Kurds.

Thousands of Yazidis on the mountain were able to leave each night over the past several days, Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said.

The US troops and US Agency for International Development staff who conducted the assessment on Sinjar — fewer than 20 people overall — did not engage in combat operations and all ­returned safely to Irbil.

“The Yazidis who remain are in better condition than previously believed and continue to have ­access to the food and water that we have dropped,” Admiral Kirby said.

“Based on this assessment the inter-agency has determined that an evacuation mission is far less likely. Additionally, we will continue to provide humanitarian assistance as needed and will protect US personnel and facilities.”

The US Central Command said four US cargo planes airdropped 108 bundles of food and water to people on the mountain.

Thousands of people have poured across a border bridge into camps in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region after trekking through neighbouring Syria to find refuge, most with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Some women carried children, weeping as they reached Iraqi Kurdistan. But Mahmud Bakr, 45, said large numbers of people, including the most vulnerable, remained trapped on Mount Sinjar. “My ­father Khalaf is 70 years old — he cannot make this journey,” he said as he crossed back into Iraq.

For those who managed to ­escape the siege, the relief of reaching relative safety was tempered by the spartan conditions of the camps in Iraqi Kurdistan.

“We were besieged for 10 days in the mountain. The whole world is talking about us, but we did not get any real help,” said Khodr Hussein. “We went from hunger in Sinjar to hunger in this camp.”

AP, AFP