AN ASYLUM seeker today told how he had escaped Robert Mugabe's henchmen in Zimbabwe -- only to be mugged in Blackburn.

The man, who would only be identified by his first name, Milton, for fear of retribution attacks on him and his family back home, fled the trouble-torn African country last year.

The 34-year-old fled his home in Bulawayo after his friends, fellow members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party, began disappearing.

He said his brother, a known opponent of Mugabe's dictatorship, was killed for his beliefs.

Milton was sent to the Mill Hill area of Blackburn last July by the National Asylum Support Services's dispersal team, and is waiting to see if he will be granted permanent asylum in Britain.

His only contact with Zimbabwe is by talking to his uncle and watching the news on television.

And today he revealed he had been intimidated by a gang of youths which hang around near where he lives -- and last month he was surrounded by robbers, who pushed him and stole his wallet.

Milton's family are originally from the Matokonye Plumtree area of the country and he worked as a bore-holer.

Had he not left the country when he did, he fears he would also have been on Mugabe's list of victims.

He said: "Government gangs had started to come looking for people. At first, we would tell them where they were, not knowing what they wanted. Then those people started disappearing and we became afraid.

"They were all members of the MDC like me.

"One day I was told that people had been looking for me. I thought if I didn't leave, something would happen to me.

"I caught a plane to Spain which then went on to England. After a week or so, I was sent to Blackburn and I have been trying to make my home here.

"The people have been friendly mostly. I have been attacked and my wallet taken once, and sometimes I am frightened of the gang who hang around near where I live, but it is much safer than Zimbabwe.

"I do not know what would have happened to me if I had stayed in Zimbabwe. It is my home, and I have a lot of memories of it. I cannot go back home until the regime changes and that cannot happen until someone like America gets involved."

While Mugabe's regime hit the headlines two years ago for sending in troops to seize farmland owned by white farmers, more recently he has been condemned across the world for taking a hardline on opposition activists.

Last week, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested on treason charges for daring to speak out against Mugabe's government.

Today, Milton said: "My people are too frightened to stand up against the government but horrible things are happening."

The opposition MDC calculates that between January and November last year, 1,060 MDC activists were tortured, 227 abducted and beaten, 58 murdered, 111 unlawfully detained, and 170 picked up, tortured and released without being charged.

The Foreign Secretary, Blackburn MP Jack Straw, said he could not comment on Milton's asylum application as that was a matter for the Home Secretary David Blunkett and the appeals procedure.

On the wider issue of Zimbabwe's problems, he said: "What's going on in the country is bad and its also very frustrating.

"We are working very hard with other southern African governments to try and secure a solution."