The peace deal signed last year between Nepal's government and Maoist rebels has done little for people like Hirkala. Having lost both her husband and her home to the civil war, the blind widow fled with her children only to wind up in a region wracked by further civil unrest.

And then the rains started.

"When the floods came they almost killed me," said Hirkala, nursing a toddler in the sweltering humidity outside the cowshed that now passes for home in the town of Nepalganj, which sits along the western reaches of Nepal's southern border with India.

She is one of thousands of internally displaced people (IDP) in the country stranded by a decade of civil war, which officially came to an end late last year when the peace accord was sealed.

But July's devastating monsoon rains across the densely populated southern Terai region, a wave of violent protests against local authorities, and threats by the Maoists to disrupt national elections due in November have given most of them little to hope for.

Overwhelmed

"There was water inside the house, high up. But nobody came to help me," said Hirkala, who belongs to the ostracised Dalit community, once known as Untouchables. She is now completely alone and has lived off handout scraps of food since her husband, a Maoist sympathiser, disappeared in her home region.

The latest floods followed a prolonged drought which had already wiped out crops across vast swathes of the south. Drought relief goods were then delayed when helipads were washed away by the rains.

"The floods have simply overwhelmed people's capacity to cope with a situation that even under normal circumstances would be difficult," said Richard Ragan, director of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) in Nepal.

"But the floods should not overshadow the fact that over 1.2 million people continue to suffer from the effects of the 11-year insurgency."

The country's internally displaced are at the receiving end of most of the crises that beset the troubled mountain kingdom. Many haven't returned home, and more are now fleeing fresh violence in the Terai districts to the east of Nepalganj, sparked by demands among ethnic minorities for greater autonomy.

"IDPs are neglected by the government," said Puskar Pandey, IDP coordinator with the Nepalese human rights organisation Informal Sector Service Center (INSEC) in Nepalganj. According to Pandey, Maoists and politicians are too busy striking deals with each other to worry about those marooned by the conflict.

"The Maoists are welcoming the government, but IDPs often don't get any response for resettling from either of them. People are still afraid of the Maoists."

Disenfranchised

Nepal's interim government launched an IDP policy earlier this year, but critics say it's too vaguely worded. People like Hirkala are still waiting to reap any benefits - including the right to vote in the upcoming polls.

"The government is only making slogans," said Pandey. "The displaced don't have their names on voter lists, so how can they participate in elections?"

For most of the displaced, voting will be very difficult without identity papers unless they return to their home region. But despite the chance to vote and the hope of a small allowance when they return, many have decided to stay where they are for fear of hunger, poverty or intimidation back home, according to Krisna Ghimire from the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

"When poor people return, in most cases their houses are smashed and broken. There's nothing there. They don't have anything to eat when they go back," he said.

In another hamlet set amid the rice and maize fields around Nepalganj, Ramkali gives her sick and crying children some water, yellowish and contaminated by the floods. Going home to vote in November is the last thing on her mind.

"Life has been very hard here since my husband died, but I don't want to go back," she said. Her husband was killed by Maoists, who suspected him of being a spy.

"If everybody else goes to vote, then I will go," said Ramkali. Will she be able to vote? "I have no idea, I don't know."

"Elections are just a band-aid," said Natalie Hicks, country director for the peace-building agency International Alert. Except for the IDPs, migrants and whole sections of the Terai are also at risk of losing their vote.

"The question is whether it's legitimate when a big part of the population can't take part. I'd say they couldn't go ahead," she said.

Aid warning

Nepal's journey towards democracy would have been tortuous enough without the monsoon heaping yet further misery on the country. And while flood relief will at least bring a welcome injection of aid cash, donors are notably less excited about addressing the low-key obstacles that plague the peace process.

According to WFP's Ragan, the U.N. agency is "in desperate need of funds" for conflict recovery.

"Over four times the number of people affected by the recent flooding in Nepal are struggling to recover from the effects of the conflict - requiring a significantly larger amount of donor support in order to provide the humanitarian assistance needed," he said.

International Alert's Hicks said flood relief could even turn into a source of conflict unless agencies and politicians distribute the aid with care. Almost half of Nepal's districts were hit by the floods, most of them in the conflict-riven Terai belt.

"If you look at the experience of Sri Lanka, the massive aid flows after the tsunami helped to generate further conflict," she said.

Fair elections and a well structured humanitarian programme could provide Nepal with a fresh start - poorly organised relief could tip it towards disaster. But Hirkala and her fellow displaced have more immediate worries. "It's hard to find food," she said. "If someone gives me food I eat, if not I don't."

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