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Iraqi Yazidi women who fled the violence in the northern Iraq take shelter in the city of Dohuk on Aug. 5. The Yazidis, are a small community that follows an ancient faith and have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists. Yazidi leaders say several thousands members of the community have gone missing in recent months. Safin Hamed/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

Iraqi Yazidi women who fled the violence in the northern Iraq take shelter in the city of Dohuk on Aug. 5. The Yazidis, are a small community that follows an ancient faith and have been repeatedly targeted by jihadists. Yazidi leaders say several thousands members of the community have gone missing in recent months.

When the Islamic State took over large parts of northern Iraq this summer, including the areas where the minority Yazidi community lives, the U.S. carried out air strikes and halted the advance of the extremists.

Still, thousands of Yazidi women and girls have gone missing over the past few months and there are now reports they are being sold by the Islamic State as sex slaves.

Nuri Khalaf, a representative of the Yazidi tribes in Iraq's northern province of Sinjar, has been making the rounds in Washington, pleading with U.S. officials for help.

He also stopped by NPR's offices. When asked if many Yazidi women were being trafficked, he said, "That's real, it's real. Our girls have been sold for $300, $400 dollars, $500 dollars. It's real. It's happening."

Khalaf explained through an interpreter that he had to spend more than $9,000 to buy back his 13-year-old niece and five other women and girls after they were kidnapped by the Islamic State and forced to watch family members killed and abused.

He said he doesn't have any faith in Iraqi or Kurdish authorities in northern Iraq, and that's why he and several other Yazidi representatives came to Washington.

"Iraq is our country but America was the one who came and liberated us from Saddam's regime, so it's the US responsibility to save us too," said Khalaf, referring to the 2003 invasion that ousted the Iraqi dictator.

Young Iraqi Yazidi refugees fill bottles with water at the Newroz camp in northeastern Syria on Aug. 14, after fleeing advances by Islamic State jihadists in Iraq. Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP/Getty Images hide caption

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Iraq's Yazidis Appeal For Help In Finding Their Missing Women