Human rights groups have drawn up the dossier on victims who, they claim, were abused as soon as they arrived home. Some deportees have disappeared.

A lawyer for one refugee group said: “We just want to prove to Mr Blair the present dangers of sending home opponents of Mugabe. Their families are scared to protest because they, too, will suffer.”

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Harare said yesterday that it is compiling a list of recent deportees detained, beaten and interrogated on their return.

The first sign that the Home Office was beginning to shift its hardline stance came last night when a source close to the Home Secretary said that it would be guided by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on whether it had become too dangerous to continue with deportations planned for this week.

But in a sign that the Government is struggling to reach a decision, Downing Street insiders said that Mr Blair would resist pressure to suspend the deportation of all asylum-seekers from Zimbabwe.

They say that the Prime Minister believes there to be plenty of other countries in the world whose regimes are abhorrent, but not everyone from those nations seeking asylum is genuinely at risk if they return home. One Downing Street official said that the Prime Minister “thinks it would be wrong to have a special moratorium for Zimbabwe. The Home Office should continue to assess each case on its merits”.

The Zimbabwe Association say that arrests have risen dramatically in the past month.

There was a dispute last night on the numbers taking part in the hunger strike. The Home Office says 41, but detainees say that there are well over a hundred.

Crespen Kulingi, a protest leader whose own deportation was suspended at the weekend, said: “We will be killed if we are sent back. Of course we want to live, but better to die with some courage and honour here rather than face Mugabe’s torturers.”

Mr Kulingi, 32, who was tortured and left for dead because of his work for the MDC party, says that hunger strikers at some detention centres are being threatened. “They are told they will be the first to be put on to a plane to Harare.”

Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, insisted that Britain was not putting any lives at risk. He said in a BBC television interview: “We would never send anyone back if we thought that their lives were in danger.”

A memorial service for victims of torture in Zimbabwe was held in London yesterday followed by a protest outside the Zimbabwean Embassy.

The Bishop of Dorchester, the Right Rev Colin Fletcher, said at the weekend: “I am conscious, listening to their stories, that there is a great fear amongst those facing deportation to Zimbabwe of what they will face if they return.”

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Lancaster, the Right Rev Patrick O’Donoghue, said: “I want to reinforce the call to stop all deportations or forcible return of people, at least for the moment.”

Zimbabwe accused the British authorites of racism for expelling black asylum-seekers.

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