THOUSANDS of Iraqi villagers fleeing advances by fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) crowded a checkpoint on the border of the country’s Kurdish-controlled territory today.

They were seeking shelter in the safety of the self-rule region after an artillery offensive against Christian villages forced thousands to flee. 

The shelling targeted a cluster of villages in the Hamdaniya, 45 miles from the frontier of the Kurdish region.

While many villagers were granted access by daybreak, hundreds more were still facing delays because they lacked sponsors on the other side.

Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary William Hague arrived in the region on the coat-tails of US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Mr Hague called Isis a “mortal threat” to Iraq and paradoxically sought to place blame for its existence on the government of neighbouring Syria, which is fighting against the fundamentalist organisation.