Blair hears women's stories of abuse and suffering

Tony Blair heard Iraqi women tell harsh stories of suffering inflicted by Saddam Hussein yesterday as part of the Government's campaign to help force the Iraqi President to relinquish his weapons of mass destruction.

The Prime Minister and his wife, Cherie, spent an hour listening to a group of 10 women as they gave examples of abuse, intimidation and death under the Iraqi regime.

One Kurdish woman told Mr Blair she spent days fleeing a chemical gas attack through the mountains, while another said she and her family had faced death threats from Iraqi intelligence officers after they fled to Jordan. Another said she was told she would die in a blood-spattered prison cell if she did not give police family details.

The delegation – which included women from the Shia and Sunni Muslim communities, Kurds, Turkomans, and Christian Assyrians – was from the Coalition for Justice in Iraq, which represents 275 non-governmental organisations from 120 countries.

The women were accompanied by Bakhtiar Amin, head of the coalition, which has called for the United Nations to set up a tribunal to investigate the Iraqi leadership's alleged crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide.

The meeting was widely seen as part of Downing Street's continuing offensive to increase pressure on President Saddam over human rights and other issues in the countdown to the deadline for the Iraqi leader to provide a full disclosure of hisweapons.

Reem al-Saadi, 28, a Shia Arab, claimed asylum in 1994 after an assassination attempt on her and her family. She said: "My father received a phone call from intelligence asking him to come in for questioning. He said 'I'm on my way' and we left immediately. We didn't wait for one minute, not even to pack up clothes ...We need help to change the government – we cannot do it alone."

Safia Suhail, whose father was killed for opposing the regime, said that although she had left Iraq she was still receiving death threats through e-mail or messages sent into Britain. She added: "We would like to meet other communities to talk about our suffering and to let them realise our suffering will never end, only if we change the regime."