ZIMBABWEAN asylum-seekers face forcible repatriation after the Government ended a two-year ban on enforced removals yesterday.

The decision was greeted with anger by refugee organisations but Des Browne, the Immigration Minister, told MPs that the ban was ending because it was being abused by Zimbabweans who were not genuine refugees.

Maeve Sherlock, the chief executive of the Refugee Council, said that it was “concerned about the prospect of anyone being forcibly returned to (President) Mugabe’s Zimbabwe”, and called on the Government to monitor who was sent back.

She said: “No one should be sent back before monitoring procedures are put in place.”

A spokeswoman for the Zimbabwe Community Association in London said that sending back Zimbabweans would be exposing them to death or torture. “The moment you have a connection with this country you are an enemy of Mugabe and he will do whatever it takes to make (you) suffer. Mugabe has openly said that anyone who opposes him faces death.”

The announcement comes as the England cricket team face a controversial winter tour in Zimbabwe.

Last week Chris Mullins, the Foreign Office Minister responsible for Africa, conceded that despite the UK doing all it could, the situation was deteriorating and there was no sign of an end to abuses. The regime has been accused of using repressive laws to criminalise peaceful gatherings, as well as shutting down independent media outlets and nongovernmental organisations.

There have been systematic attacks on the independence of judges and lawyers and allegations of torture and ill-treatment, including rape by security forces and “youth” militia.

After more than 5,000 white farmers were forced off their farms, Zimbabwe announced this summer that it would nationalise all farms.

Amnesty International, in its latest report, issued a warning that millions of people in Zimbabwe are going hungry because the Government refused aid, claiming that the country had had a “bumper harvest” in 2004. The claims have been widely discredited.

The UN estimates that at least 2.3 million rural people will need food assistance before next April’s harvest.

Mr Browne said that the ban on removals had been introduced in January 2002 in response to concerns about the serious deterioration in the situation in Zimbabwe before the presidential election held in March that year.

The latest statistics, published yesterday, showed that in the first nine months of this year, asylum was granted to 195 Zimbabweans, and some other form of protection to more than 25 others. This was out of a total of 2,025 decisions.

• The number of overall asylum seekers coming to Britain increased by 13 per cent in the third quarter of this year, Government figures showed yesterday. Provisional figures from the Home Office indicated that, including dependants, there were 10,385 new asylum seekers, compared with 9,210 in the second quarter of the year.

  The number of failed applicants being deported from the UK fell by 2 per cent to 3,085, excluding dependants. This was the fourth quarter in a row to see numbers decrease. The number of removals was also 15 per cent lower than in the same period last year.

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