Afghan refugees who have lived in Pakistan for decades are under pressure to go home after the floods destroyed camps that now represent a lucrative opportunity for local property speculators. Some 70,000 refugees are estimated to have lost their homes throughout the northwestern region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Many of the camps were established 20 or 30 years ago in remote areas but today stand at the edge of growing towns and cities, such as Nowshera and Peshawar, making the sites attractive to property speculators. Khassim Diagne, deputy representative of the UNs refugee agency, told The Daily Telegraph that unscrupulous developers had been telling refugees that they would not be allowed to return to the land. The fear is that developers are moving in so we have launched an education campaign to make sure that refugees know that this is their land and they cant be forced away, he said. But refugees said there is no official help on hand. No-one has been here to help us, said Abdul Wahab, 60, who escaped from Afghanistan 17 years ago and lost his possessions when the Azakhel camp was destroyed a month ago. We will trust in Allah, and if this camp is not rebuilt we will try to start again. Azakhel, just outside the town of Nowshera, was home to about 23,000 of the 1.7m Afghan refugees who have found a haven in Pakistan. A man came here and told us that we must move to another camp, said Lal Zadar, as he stumbled through the wreckage where he had once lived. But thats not we want. We want cash so we can rebuild our lives here, our homes, our shops, our mosques, and have our respect back.(The Daily Telegraph)