The spiritual council for Iraq's Yazidi community says it will not embrace the children of women raped by Islamic State group men, just days after it said it would accept "all survivors" of the extremist group's attempted annihilation of the minority community.

The Supreme Spiritual Council says the media "distorted" the meaning of an earlier statement concerning the Yazidi women and children abducted by IS militants in 2014 and sold into sexual slavery.

Many of the women are believed to be in Syria, where they were forced to have children with their captors in the now defunct IS "caliphate".

Yazidi official Ali Khedhir Ilyas said Sunday the council encourages the women to return with their children, but added "we cannot force the families to accept" those born of rape.