HOME Secretary David Blunkett has been asked to save a Bolton group of Kurdish refugees from being deported back to Iraq -- where they claim Saddam Hussein's regime will persecute them.

The 25 Iraqi men, all single, have been living in the town for the past few months but their claims for British asylum have been turned down.

They are due to be returned to northern Iraq, which is home to the majority of Kurds.

But Dr Brian Iddon, MP for Bolton South East, says steps have to be taken to halt their deportation.

He has written to Mr Blunkett, urging him to think again.

The Kurds have long been an enemy of Saddam to the point where the Iraqi leader bombarded them with chemical weapons in the 1980s -- and it is feared returning them will endanger their lives.

Their battle to stay in Bolton comes as the threat of war with Iraq increases each day. Britain and the USA are maintaining a hard-line stance on the likely need to take action to disarm Saddam, even though UN Security Council members France, Russia and China have spoken out against war. President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair could send thousands of troops stationed in the Gulf to war within weeks.

British immigration chiefs have already ruled that the men will not be sent to the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, even though some of the men lived there before making the journey to England.

A ban on flights to Baghdad also makes deportation to the capital virtually impossible. Nevertheless, the men will still be sent back to the Middle Eastern country, more than likely via Turkey.

The 25 men are part of a total of about 850 asylum seekers and refugees, mainly from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Somalia who currently live in Bolton. The Kurds had travelled from Iraq through Turkey en route to Britain, each playing £8,800 to a lorry driver who managed to drive them all the way across mainland Europe to Calais where they caught a ferry to Dover.

In Britain, they asked for asylum. The National Asylum Seekers Support unit sent them to Bolton where they have been living in private accommodation paid for by the Government.

"There is a heightened risk in sending these people back to Iraq at this time," said Dr Iddon.

"These people are very much anti-Saddam Hussein. They oppose his regime. The last thing they want is to be sent back to Iraq where they will be persecuted or forced to fight for Iraq in case of war."

Dr Iddon opposes war without evidence of weapons of mass destruction and without United Nations backing.

A spokesman for Mr Blunkett's office said: "We do not comment on individual cases."

The 25 men living at various different properties in Bolton are among hundreds of Kurdish refugees residing in Britain.

Amnesty International has also voiced concern. A spokesman said: "Deportation of Kurds to a so-called safe haven in Northern Iraq has been spoken of before but at the moment we do not believe this will happen."

"If there is evidence to the contrary, we would be very concerned. The removal of people to other countries is an issue which always causes apprehension as to their safety there in the future."