In the middle of this remote desert in southern Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans languish in Zare Dashte camp, fugitives from violence in their northern homelands.
In the refugee camp 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of the former Taleban stronghold of Kandahar, they are dreaming the October 9 presidential election will finally bring peace, after 25 years of drought and conflict and five years of harsh Taleban rule.
Most of the camp's residents are from the fertile northern provinces of Faryab and Jawzjan, but they speak the language of the south and Afghanistan's largest ethnic group: Pashtuns.
Some of these proud Pashtuns, wearing turbans threaded with silver and gold, have been stranded for more than two years in this desert, driven from the north in late 2001 where they are a minority among ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks.
"After the fall of the Taleban, people began to pillage our property, occupy our lands," recalled Abdul Matin, 32, one of the refugees.
"They told us, 'you are Pashtun and the Taleban were Pashtun'."
Tribal elder Baha Odin, 48, chimed in: "They said 'you are with al Qaeda'."
Mohammad Assam, 18, has a different story: originally from the neighbouring southern province of Zabul, his family fled fighting which erupted during the United States-led offensive against the Taleban for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden after the September 11 terror attacks.
Like Abdul Matin and Baha Odin, Mohammad Assam headed to Afghanistan's eastern neighbour Pakistan, where some four million Afghans had taken refuge since 1979.
He passed hundreds of thousands of Afghans, heading in the opposite direction, who had chosen to return to their homeland after the Taleban's defeat in late 2001.
In mid 2002, Abdul Matin crossed back into Afghanistan and headed to Zare Dashte camp. Mohammad Assam's family also took shelter here.
But since then no one, let alone any leaders from the central government, has managed to end the inter-ethnic violence they fled.
The government of President Hamid Karzai has failed to extend its reach across the whole country, and has only disarmed 15,000 of an estimated 100,000 militia fighters who still wield the real power in the provinces.
In the camp, only some 500 families of a total of 50,000 refugees have headed back home, according to Marco Rotelli, from the Italian aid organisation Intersos which helps to manage the camp.
According to the United Nations' refugee agency, 180,000 displaced people were still living in camps scattered around Afghanistan as of the end of August, almost three years after the Taleban's ouster. Some 145,000 of them were in the southern provinces.
Abdul Matin has not been able to go home, fearing reprisals: in February, he explained, a delegation of 14 camp representatives were dispatched to Sheberghan in the north to assess the situation.
On the surface the fighting appeared to have dissipated, but according to the delegation the situation was unchanged.
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