The massive refugee camp of Maslakh, west of Afghanistan's historic western city of Herat, stands as a sharp reminder of the challenges destitute Afghans face - even after the routing of the hardline Taliban last year. More than 100,000 men, women and children struggle to survive in the squalid camp - almost half have been there for almost a year. Many face a harsh winter under makeshift shelters with just basic food and medicine. Their plight is common to hundreds of thousands of Afghan IDPs who have been made homeless by decades of conflict and an ongoing drought.

According to an assessment by UNHCR and its partners, roughly over half a million IDPs and former refugees throughout Afghanistan will be in need of assistance during the winter, particularly in the areas of shelter, food, water, healthcare, and non-food related assistance.

Gul Pari is a mother at just 16 because of the ancient custom of early marriages among Afghanistan's majority ethnic Pashtuns. She fled the western Afghan province of Badghis with her husband and mother in January, when ethnic Uzbek militias looted their livestock - the only source of income for most Afghan nomads. "We were used to moving around and now we are confined to one place," she said.

Pari nurses her malnourished one-year-old baby in the camp's clinic and waits for the time they will have their nomadic caravans on the move again.

Her ordeal portrays the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of Afghan nomads whose animals were killed by drought or lost while fleeing ethnic persecution in northern Afghanistan. Most of the nomads have ended up in displacement camps around the country, but some live in scattered villages, receiving little assistance.

In 1996 and 1997, new groups of IDPs began moving to the western borders of Afghanistan to escape the drought and the increasingly harsh presence of the Taliban, who were at war with their Northern Alliance rivals. They hoped to receive some help.

People living in small mountain villages in the western provinces of Badghis, Ghowr and Faryab felt the intensity of the conditions most of all.

Eking out meagre livelihoods from their small farms, these villagers tried to stay on as long as they could, selling off everything valuable, including animals, utensils and farm implements, until they were forced into making perilous journeys in search of relief and shelter.

The post-11 September US-led military campaign in Afghanistan and the anarchy after the fall of the Taliban displaced yet more people.

Some of the ethnic Pashtuns - constituting the majority of IDPs in the western region - were forced to abandon their villages or give up their animals when ethnic militias loyal to local warlords started settling scores after the demise of the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. While Afghanistan remains insecure outside the capital most are too afraid to return to regions that are now run by pro-Northern Alliance warlords.

Although the total number of IDPs in western Afghanistan is hard to determine, some estimate that more than 100,000 might be staying in the five camps in and around Herat, after more than 80,000 of them returned to their villages - mostly in the three provinces of Herat, Badghis and Ghowr - under the IOM's assisted-return programme over the past four months.

IOM now believes that the total number of IDPs in Maslakh - the largest displacement camp in western Afghanistan - has halved from the estimated 118,000 registered in February. Earlier, population estimates there ranged from 200,000 to 300,000. IOM manages all the camps in Herat.

Shaidayee, a smaller camp, houses more than 20,000 people, while the Minaret camp in the centre of Herat city accommodates about 400 families. With Rawzabagh officially closed, some IDPs continue to live in the Rawashan and city transit camps.

Conditions in the IDP settlements are not encouraging. While most of the camps have mud houses instead of tents, the stench of human faeces permeates the air. Diarrhoea and respiratory diseases are common in the crowded environment. But Maslakh, named after the once-functional slaughterhouse near the camp, has always been a symbol of Afghan suffering - long before 11 September 2001.

"The overall situation has improved in the last few months, compared to the beginning of the year," Stefano Savi, the Medecins Sans Frontieres country manager for the western and southern regions of Afghanistan, told IRIN.

"At the beginning of the year, corruption, discrimination, violence and food distribution undermined security and protection of the population, especially in the Maslakh camp," he added.

Raising further concerns, Savi said that although security improved after the changes to the management of the security and a decrease in the number of displaced, IDPs remained inadequately informed about the voluntary nature of the return. "They don't know much about their areas of origin, where enough assistance is not being provided," he said.

Mohammad Bashir, in his mid-thirties, now lives in the Minaret camp, named after the crumbling minarets of a 14th century seminary that even today defines Herat's skyline.

Bashir fled his village in the Khwaja Ghar district of Takhar Province in 2000, at the height of Afghanistan's decade-long civil war. "It's not the best of places, but at least we are safe here," he said. His more than 1,000 km-long journey illustrates the magnitude of displacement in the war-ravaged country.

But Bashir is lucky - in some ways. He has managed to find work in Herat, one of the country's most prosperous cities because of trade with neighbouring Iran and Turkmenistan. "It was very difficult to sneak into Pakistan, so I came here," he said.

The father of four lives on his meagre earnings and the assistance package they receive. The family subsists in a low-walled mud compound similar to the one they had left behind in their village. But they now have access to some health care and employment.

"I will return to my village only when it's safe and I find enough work to live on," he said, sharing a widespread view among IDPs, particularly Pashtuns from the north.

But with winter fast approaching, the sustainability of IDP returns and the provision of enough assistance in the areas of origin remain uncertain. According to the Humanitarian Accountability Project's research findings in June, some IDPs have actually returned to the camps as a result of a lack of assistance in their areas of origin.

Reiterating the need for coordinated assistance for returnees in their areas of origin, Mark Petzoldt, a camp manager with IOM, maintained that much depended on the conditions in the rural areas of provinces around Herat. "They should be provided with the basic means of survival, resulting in some livelihood security," he said.

While many agencies have complained of a possible funding crisis, winter may bring fresh waves of displaced people into Herat. "The best we can hope is that this winter we will not have a huge influx of displaced people," Foroogh Foyouzat, a protection officer with the United Nations Children's Fund, said.

CENTRAL REGION

In central Afghanistan, there are no longer any camps for IDPs, most are now squatting wherever they can find a desolate building in urban areas like the capital, Kabul. Forty-eight-year-old Mohammad Qadir and his family of eight have been living in a shack in the mountains around Kabul for the past four years. "We fled Mazar-e Sharif during the fighting in 1998 as we feared for our lives," he told IRIN.

Working as a day labourer, Qadir said he was not returning to his home in the north just yet as he had heard that security was still poor there. "I have left my land behind, and we have suffered so much over the past years," he added. Qadir said he had left his home town with some 50 families who also settled in destroyed and deserted buildings in the capital.

The two main camp in the region now stand empty. IDPs voluntarily left them - one in the Panjshir valley and the other at the former Soviet compound in Kabul - to return to their places of origin, according to UNHCR.

According to the refugee agency, in the central region there was now a trend for IDPs and refugees to return to their areas of origin, unless their homes were located in insecure places or drought-affected areas. However, aid workers say displacement could continue.

"If there is continuing displacement, it will be towards the end of the year when people run out of food in areas where the harvest and crop was bad," Felipe Camargo, head of the UNHCR central region sub-office in Kabul, told IRIN.

UNHCR carried out a survey in the central region at the start of 2001 to determine the amount of food assistance needed for IDPs, and established that there were about 347,000 IDPs, most of them in Kabul. Of these some 242,000 were expected to go home, Camargo said. Following the most recent count, UNHCR concluded there were around 170,000 IDPs left in the central region.

Camargo said there were still serious concerns over the conditions the IDPs were living in. "Water and sanitation are our key concerns," he said, noting that many IDPs were occupying houses in Kabul demolished during fighting and unfit for habitation.

Raising the point that large numbers of refugees were returning to the central region, he said there could be further displacement if more houses were not built. "The population of Kabul is expected to double in the next year or so, and there is an urgent need for the international community to realise this," he said. "Without proper housing Kabul will be full of slums in a very high earthquake-prone area."

Shelter, he said, was the number-one priority. "Only after providing shelter can we think about giving them access to education and health."

Of future concern for UNHCR are nomads in this region. "They too have lost their livestock and are in need of assistance," Camargo said. Although the refugee agency does not regard nomads as IDPs, due to their lifestyle, there are signs that they too could become stuck in an area such as Kabul to receive assistance.

"Nomads who also previously spent time in the central highlands in Hazarajat are having problems in accessing the area due to security and ethnic rivalry, and they are remaining on the outskirts of Kabul city," he explained.

Despite the strains and burdens on the local community, Camargo said IDPs had opportunities in certain cities which they could never have had in rural areas. "We must not be selfish and expect them all to leave when they have good opportunities for work here," he stressed.

EASTERN REGION

Musa, a father of four, has been at the Hisarshahi camp near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad for the past six months after fleeing his home in the north in fear of his and his family's lives. "We've known Pashtuns who were killed," he told IRIN. "They came into our homes and looted us." Musa left the northern Takhar Province with very few belongings and is now living in a flea-infested tent in the middle of a hot, dusty site for IDPs.

The camp leader, Haji Abdullah, told IRIN that 12 deaths from heat-related illnesses had been reported at the site over the summer and that forthcoming winter conditions would claim many more. "There were serious concerns, such as nutrition levels among displaced people at the camp. But there are clinics on site who have been alerted to this, and the situation has improved," Vicky Tennant, the protection officer for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Jalalabad, told IRIN.

There are some 68,000 registered IDPs in the eastern region, of whom 62,000 are in the province of Nangarhar, 4,000 in Konar and 1,800 in Laghman. Aid workers say the IDPs are keen to return to their places of origin. "The IDP situation is improving in the eastern region as the trends show that the majority of people are returning," Tennant said.

Hisarshahi camp, the biggest in the eastern region, used to host up to 100,000 IDPs (15,000 families) when it was first established in 1994, following fighting between Mujahidin groups in and around the Afghan capital, Kabul. UNHCR along with international NGOs such as the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, the Islamic Relief Agency and a local NGO, Hewad, have been assisting displaced Afghans at the camp.

In March 2002, UNHCR carried out a population survey at the camp, finding that there were nearly 5,000 families left there, of whom more than half wanted to return home. Most of them were of Pashtun ethnic origin from Kabul, Nangarhar, Laghman and Takhar.

In response to the IDPs' wish to return to their home regions, UNHCR started a voluntary repatriation programme, under which they were provided with transport, wheat and plastic sheeting. However, between 30 and 50 families were arriving at the camp every week up until May. They were from Takhar, Konduz and Baghlan provinces, where ethnic Tajiks predominate.

Although there have reportedly been some improvements in the situation for Pashtuns in these provinces, following intervention by a commission formed by Karzai's government, and international criticism, it is likely to be some time before these families feel that the situation is sufficiently secure for them to return - if ever - according to aid workers.

There are now some 247 new families registered at the camp, with another 34 unregistered. "Our strategy is to give them emergency assistance, but it will be limited, as this cannot continue forever," said Tennant.

She added that her counterparts in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif were identifying the problems in Takhar, because the displaced families said they did want to return if security improved. "A proposal for a return commission to be set up in the north has been put forward to ensure returnees' safety," she said.

In addition to the IDPs at the camp, there are 3,000 registered IDP families living in Jalalabad city, who fled their homes over the past few years due to factional fighting and the drought. However, there are an estimated 42,000 additional unregistered IDP families in the city, of whom some 18,000 would return, according to UNHCR. The refugee agency also plans to assist these people in returning to their home provinces.

NORTHERN REGION

Eighty-five years old and still living the hard life, Maleka broke into song as the flatbed truck taking her home shuddered to a halt at the side of the road for its passengers to rest and get a drink of water.

Her grandchildren jumped off the truck with many others, raced towards a filthy stream running alongside the road and jumped straight in to escape the searing midday heat. Hers is just one of about 630 families which have been displaced by drought and war in northern Afghanistan and who returned to their homes this autumn.

Some had spent years in the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif. They were taken home in a 52-truck convoy organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). But, for Maleka, who says she has no second name, home is just about four hours away. She and her family left Andkhvoy, west of Mazar-e Sharif, four years ago because of drought. As she watches her grandchildren splash about in the stream and collect drinking water for the rest of their journey, her weathered face breaks into a smile. "Home might be better than Mazar, and if next season there is no drought, there will be good opportunities," she told IRIN.

Maleka is under no illusions. She knows that the northern region remains in the grip of a four year drought. But she, like many other IDPs, has had a difficult time since leaving home.

"One of my sons was married and one was not. One went to Iran and another to Pakistan. They left their children with me. Our lives were bad. Now we want to go back," she said.

Maleka did not live in a camp, like thousands of other IDPs. She and her three grandchildren, travelling with her and her two sons, who have also returned, lived in a run-down house in Mazar-e Sharif which had been abandoned.

"We washed clothes and asked for charity [to survive] and the young boy worked," she told IRIN. After registering as an IDP, they also got some food from relief organisations, she said. Maleka laughs when asked if she, at 85, also washed clothes for a living. "Of course, of course," she said, nodding her head vigorously. "We have to work to live."

But returned IDPs like Maleka will remain vulnerable throughout the coming winter. Hanif Atmar, is Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) and tasked to lead the government's winterisation effort. He told IRIN they were looking at five major areas of concern - including access, food aid, population movement, the plight of the nomadic kuchis and the urban poor.

Topping the list is access and the ability to move vast amounts of humanitarian assistance into inaccessible areas of the country due to heavy snows or cold. "Approximately two million people live in those parts of the country," he explained, adding, the primary areas of concern were the central highlands, the northwestern parts of the country, for example Badghis and Ghor provinces, as well as the northeast.

The IOM operations and logistics officer for Mazar, Arnaud Conchon, said the organisation had helped 8,000 to 10,000 families return to their homes from the northern Balkh Province over the past eight months. IOM works with the UNHCR and local NGOs.

"We return people as soon as their place of origin is not worse than when they left," he told IRIN. "Also, many people are choosing to return to their homes now because of living conditions in the IDP camps around the province."

For example, he said, at times there was a serious lack of clean drinking water at some of the camps, in spite of the fact that IDP families received up to 15 litres of water a day for washing, cooking and drinking.