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Paul Wood reports from Mount Sinjar, from where many refugees have escaped, but some 'stragglers' remain
EU foreign ministers are holding an emergency meeting in Brussels on Friday to discuss plans to arm Iraq's Kurds against an extremist insurgency.
France and the US have already begun to supply weapons to the Kurds, whose Peshmerga fighters are trying to halt an advance by Islamic State militants.
On Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki resigned and conceded power to Haider al-Abadi, Iraq's deputy speaker.
Meanwhile, the governor of Dohuk province has warned of a "genocide".
"We have hundreds of thousands (of refugees). We're going to face an international humanitarian catastrophe because many of these kids and children will die," said Farhad Atrushi.
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Farhad Atrushi, governor of Duhok Province, tells the BBC's Caroline Wyatt that the UK and US bear "political and ethical" responsibility to help
The UN says over a million Iraqis remain displaced from their homes after IS militants took over large parts of northern Iraq.
'People dying'The emergency EU meeting was called for by France, whose foreign minister Laurent Fabius criticised the EU for inaction on Iraq.
"When there are people dying... you have to come back from your holidays," he told EU foreign policy chief Baroness Catherine Ashton in a letter earlier this week.
About 20 ministers are discussing EU-wide approval to ship arms to the Kurds and the Iraqi army.
Military aid pledges- The US and France have already started arming Kurdish fighters
- The UK says it would "favourably consider" any request for arms from the Kurds
- Germany has already promised to provide non-lethal military aid to Iraq's army
- The Czech Republic says it is working "on the preparation of military supplies" to the Kurds
- The Netherlands said on Thursday that it would also consider helping arm both Kurdish and Iraqi government troops
Several EU countries, as well as the US, have made drops of aid in northern Iraq in the past week.
The US has also engaged in limited airstrikes against IS targets.
The former leader of Britain's Liberal Democrats, Lord Paddy Ashdown, welcomed moves to arm Kurdish fighters but called on western governments to tackle the "underlying issues" in the Middle East.
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The BBC's Caroline Wyatt spent the day at a hospital in Dohuk where the doctors have been treating Yazidi refugees
The governor of Dohuk province in northern Iraq said the US and UK were politically and ethically responsible for helping Iraq.
"They were promising people a stable, democratic, federal, parliamentary, prosperous Iraq, and now one third of Iraq is in the hands of a terrorist state," he told the BBC.
He said that Kurdish authorities needed at least two months and hundreds of millions of dollars to be able to provide shelter for Iraqi refugees.
Maliki resignsIraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's resignation on Thursday evening was welcomed by the UN and US.
The resignation brought an end to eight years of often divisive rule, when Mr Maliki's government was accused of favouring the Shia majority.
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The writing was on the wall for Mr Maliki, says the BBC's Jim Muir
Prime-minister designate Haider al-Abadi is one of Iraq's most senior politicians, having held several high-profile posts since returning from exile in 2003.
He is regarded by some as a moderate within Mr Maliki's Dawa party, and has shown more of a willingness to compromise than his predecessor.
In a Facebook post, Mr Abadi urged Iraqis to unite in the face of "strong and dangerous challenges". He said he would be prepared to give up his life in defence of the nation.
The change in government comes as the Iraqi army proved unable to stop Islamist fighters from seizing vast areas in northern Iraq.
The offensive by the self-styled Islamic State, a Sunni Muslim jihadist group formerly known as Isis, has triggered a security and humanitarian crisis, driving an estimated 1.2 million Iraqis from their homes.
The UN has declared the situation in the country a "level three emergency", its highest level of humanitarian crisis.
A UN Security Council meeting on Friday is expected to approve a resolution threatening sanctions against any country which finances or supports IS.
Are you in the region? Email us at haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk putting 'Iraq crisis' in the subject heading and including your contact details if you feel it is safe to do so.
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