Islamabad, Pakistan – On a pleasing February afternoon in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, the sound of strumming guitars fills a small bed room in a two-storey house that homes tenants from neighbouring Afghanistan.
A flight of slippery marble stairs results in the room on the primary flooring, the place the brilliant rays of the solar enter via the window and bounce off the musical devices, which belong to 4 younger guitarists.
These guitarists – 18-year-old Yasemin aka Jellybean, 16-year-old Zakia, 14-year-old Shukriya, and seven-year-old Uzra – are Afghan refugees who, with their households, fled the nation after the Taliban returned to energy in August 2021.
Yasemin and Uzra are sisters, as are Zakiya and Shukriya. That is the place Yasemin and Uzra are actually dwelling with their household.
The bed room is the place the women spend hours at a stretch working towards and jamming from Saturday to Thursday. Friday is their weekly day without work.
On the day Al Jazeera visits, the women are busy tuning their guitars. They tease each other as they strum squeaky, off-key chords in between.
Wearing a gray sweatshirt, her head lined with a black scarf, Yasemin is the group’s lead guitarist and a fan of Blues legend BB King and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. “I actually need to see and produce music with him,” says Yasemin on her dream to fulfill Gilmour, earlier than crooning a observe by King.
As she tunes her sturdy picket guitar together with her reliable pink decide, Yasemin turns in direction of her bandmates and guides them in adjusting theirs.
The women realized to play the guitar at Miraculous Love Children, a music faculty for kids in Kabul arrange in 2016 by Lanny Cordola, a rock musician from California. The women, whose first language is Dari, additionally realized to talk fundamental English from Cordola in Kabul, the place they attended common faculty as effectively.
Their world was turned the wrong way up when the Taliban re-took energy on August 15, 2021, after 20 years. The women have been afraid to step outdoors their properties following a spate of restrictions imposed on girls. Cordola, who left Kabul for Islamabad the day the Taliban returned to energy, started hatching plans to pluck his college students and their households out of Afghanistan so the women may proceed to pursue their music desires.
After months of lobbying donors for funding and negotiating with brokers who promised to assist the households escape, Cordola lastly managed to get seven of his college students out, to Islamabad, in April 2022. At the same time as he continued to show them there, Cordola labored in direction of finally resettling them and their households in the USA, which had introduced a programme to soak up Afghan allies and refugees who needed to flee Taliban rule.
Three of the seven women have been relocated to the US over the previous few months. Yasemin, Zakia, Shukriya and Uzra – and their households – have been presupposed to fly on February 5.
“It felt like we had every part in place. They [the US government] did all their medical exams, vetting, screening and interviews. We had the date,” says Cordola.
Then Donald Trump took workplace.
Virtually instantly, Trump issued a sequence of govt orders, together with one which suspended all refugee programmes for 90 days. “Now, it’s all new once more,” Cordola says, including that the “devastating” transfer has postponed the relocation plans “indefinitely”.
However issues would get even worse.
On March 7, the Pakistani authorities introduced its personal plans to deport all Afghan nationals, even these with correct documentation, again to their nation by June 30.
For these Afghan refugees hoping to relocate to a Western nation – like Yasemin, Zakia, Shukriya and Uzra – the deadline to go away Pakistan is much more imminent: Islamabad has mentioned it is going to start deporting them on April 1.
‘Lady with a guitar’
To collect at Yasemin and Uzra’s home for observe, Cordola picks Zakia and Shukirya up in a van from their house a couple of blocks away.
“We practise for about three to 4 hours,” says Cordola.
In a floral lilac costume and a white headband, Zakia’s slender fingers hit the chords on her guitar, which bears her preliminary, Z. She faucets her toes to match the rhythm – Chris Martin of Coldplay is her favorite musician.
Her youthful sister, Shukriya, sporting a double braid with two strands of hair resting on her rosy cheeks, is keen on American musician Dave Matthews, but additionally has a smooth spot for South Korean band BTS and its singer, RM.
“RM is my favorite. I like his dancing and rapping… it’s lovely,” says Shukriya, as her trainer, Cordola, shakes his head in disbelief – and delicate disapproval.
Uzra, Yasemin’s youthful sister, wears a lime-coloured sport watch on her left wrist, a sequinned teddy bear sweatshirt and black, patterned trousers, as she grips her smaller guitar. She struggles to climb on to the chair, then breaks into smooth, husky vocals. “She is a traditional seven-year-old in a number of methods. However when she is within the studio, she may be very, very centered. I can’t joke together with her when she is in there,” says Cordola about his youngest pupil.
Then Cordola joins them within the jam session, strumming his black guitar. The women nod in tandem and break into “Lady with a Guitar”, their very own authentic, instrumental track.
Observe ends at 1pm, and the women go about the remainder of their day – having lunch, praying, serving to their moms with chores and spending time with their households.
Uzra, Yasemin says, is buddies with the neighbours’ little one, and all the time finds methods to step out of the home to play together with her. Virtually on cue, the little guitarist dashes out of the room.
Turning ‘Unstoppable’
On days when the women handle to search out some leisure time for themselves whereas the solar remains to be out, they and their siblings go to Islamabad’s parks and amusement areas with their trainer.
Cordola picks them up in his white Suzuki excessive roof, and so they head out to the favored picnic spot Daman-e-Koh within the Margalla Hills or a vacationer favorite, Pakistan Monument on the Shakarparian Hills.
The inexperienced F-9 Park can be a favorite. There, Zakia sits on its recent, dewy grass whereas Uzra enjoys swaying backward and forward on the swings. Shukriya is dreaming of visiting a close-by meals avenue, the place she’s hoping for a deal with – pani puri, soup, ice cream and the basic samosa. Yasemin says she’s a fan of rice and loves consuming daal chawal (lentils with rice). To Zakia, rooster biryani and pani puri are one of the best meals that Pakistan has to supply.
However music is what makes the women happiest – and is what made it attainable for them to attach with a number of Grammy-nominated Australian singer and songwriter Sia.
After they recorded a rendition of her feminine empowerment anthem, Unstoppable, in 2024, the Aussie vocalist despatched the women a particular message praising their expertise.
“Thanks a lot for singing ‘Unstoppable’ and in your help. I like you a lot. I like you a lot. I actually really feel for what you’re going via,” she mentioned in a video message to the women.
The video of Sia’s observe is shot with the women singing towards the backdrop of lush inexperienced parks and atop the Shakarparian Hills. The music was recorded on the studio of Pakistani document producer Sarmad Ghafoor, a pal of Cordola’s. The track was launched on March 18.
On the time they recorded the track, three women from Cordola’s Kabul faculty who’ve now moved to the US have been additionally with Yasemin, Zakia, Shukriya and Uzra in Islamabad.
“We needed to change our costumes in between the shoot and it was difficult to do it on the areas, however we managed to do it by overlaying up for one another and likewise having enjoyable the entire time,” recollects Shukriya.
When Sia reacted to their efficiency in a video message for them, the women couldn’t consider it.
“She is somebody who didn’t must make a video for us, however she did. She is a extremely variety and inspirational girl,” says Yasemin. “She spoke together with her coronary heart and gave us a number of hope. Typically we lose hope and suppose that we gained’t be capable to do what we need to do in life. However her highly effective phrases actually impressed and motivated us.”
Promoting sweet to strumming a guitar
Nothing about Yasemin’s life at present resembles what it did seven years in the past, when she first met Cordola.
At his faculty, Cordola “needed to concentrate on women’ training and rights”, he says. “It’s training via the humanities.” He satisfied the mother and father of a number of kids who labored on the streets, particularly these of ladies, to permit them at his music faculty.
He first met Yasemin at a park the place she offered sweet and chewing gum, whereas her father washed automobiles close by.
“I used to be 11 years outdated after I first met Mr Lanny in 2017,” Yasemin recollects. “I first noticed Mr Lanny within the park with a number of kids. On the time, I didn’t speak to him as a result of I used to be very shy and likewise afraid of seeing individuals gathered in a single place. The concern of an explosion in such an area was all the time in my thoughts.”
Finally, Cordola reached out to her via one other woman, gave her 150 Afghanis ($2.11) and requested her to go to the music faculty together with her father. “I used to be hesitant at first, however a pal named Yalda was already going to the college, so I went to Miraculous together with her. Once I held the guitar for the primary time there, it felt zabardast (superior),” she recollects.
Yasemin’s father initially didn’t need her to hitch the music faculty, apprehensive about how it could be considered within the conservative Afghan society. “However later when he obtained aware of Mr Lanny, he agreed to it,” she says.
Cordola recollects that Yasemin’s father gave in when he realized that his daughter wouldn’t must work within the park any extra. “I gave a month-to-month stipend to the kids who did effectively on the faculty,” he says.
Fauzia, Yasemin and Uzra’s mom, was completely satisfied when her daughter started learning music. “I felt good as a result of [through the guitar] she [Yasemin] needed to rely upon herself for her future. Now, I really feel proud that she is just not solely doing this for herself but additionally for many who want help.”
She was nicknamed Jellybean by Cordola after being confused with one other woman with the identical identify on the Kabul faculty. “When Mr Lanny referred to as our identify ‘Yasemin’, each of us would reply to him. This precipitated a number of confusion,” she chuckles.
In the identical neighbourhood by which Yasemin and her father labored, Zakia and her father used to promote sunflower seeds. Cordola gave Zakia a visiting card and informed her to go to the music faculty together with her father, 52-year-old Muhammad Sabir.
“The subsequent day, I went there with my father to Miraculous. There, I noticed the guitars and different women enjoying it. I actually preferred it. Initially, my mom didn’t permit me as a result of she was sceptical and scared about Mr Lanny. However I insisted on attempting my luck. After I went there, I started practising the guitar and drawing, and by no means went again to the hill to work once more,” says Zakia.
Shukriya, who first visited the college together with her elder sibling out of curiosity, was so fascinated by the guitars that she too quickly joined Cordola’s rising class.
Their father, Cordola recollects, was excited on the thought of sending his daughters to his music faculty. “Zakia’s father was smiling after I first met him. He requested, ‘Can we come now?’ However I informed him to return the subsequent day. He got here the subsequent day and mentioned, ‘that is nice.’”
A tall Sabir smiles as he recollects that point. Sitting at his residence in Islamabad, he says he was “completely satisfied for the kids and supported them to play the guitar”.
“I preferred music myself earlier than I even met Mr Lanny,” says Sabir. “When the chance got here, I didn’t need my daughters to lose it. It was for his or her higher future.”
All of it modified with the Taliban’s return.
Escaping the Taliban – and ready on Pakistan
Immediately, the women have been afraid to go away their properties following a spate of restrictions imposed on girls. “When the scenario in Afghanistan worsened, I informed the women to not use it (the guitar). The Taliban don’t permit music and contemplate it haram (forbidden). I hid Shukriya’s small guitar and broke Zakia’s as a result of it was larger,” says Sabir.
Yasemin recollects one time when she stepped out to go to the bazaar.
“I wasn’t carrying a masks and the Taliban pointed a gun at me asking me to put on it proper there after which,” she says, referring to a face veil. “It was actually arduous, particularly for girls in Afghanistan.”
Cordola, in the meantime, labored with donors to boost cash to get passports made for the households of his college students, and to rent guides to carry them to the border – after which throughout into Pakistan.
After many false begins, the seven women and their households lastly made it to Pakistan in April 2022. As we speak, Cordola funds their hire, bills – and the women’ guitars – via donations.
However all of these efforts now seem in danger.
Lately, Pakistan has stepped up its deportation of Afghan refugees – a few of whom have spent most or all of their lives in Pakistan.
Pakistan deported 842,429 Afghan refugees, per the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), between September 2023 and February 2025.
In keeping with Pakistan’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs, about 40,000 Afghans in Pakistan await resettlement after “nearly 80,000” have been welcomed by totally different international locations. At the very least 10,000 to fifteen,000 among the many refugees nonetheless in Pakistan have been cleared for resettlement within the US, in response to #AfghanEvac, a coalition of US veterans and advocacy teams, earlier than Trump blocked their transfer.
Philippa Candler, the nation consultant of the UNHCR, in an announcement mentioned: “Pressured return to Afghanistan may place some individuals at elevated threat. We urge Pakistan to proceed to supply security to Afghans in danger, regardless of their documentation standing.”
Shawn VanDiver, who heads #AfghanEvac, stresses the necessity for the US authorities to fulfil its guarantees. “Our nationwide commitments can’t be conditional and non permanent. International locations around the globe are by no means going to belief the phrase of the US if our presidents can’t be counted on to hold out the commitments they’ve made,” he says. “That is simply outrageous.”
He additionally has an attraction to the federal government of Pakistan.
“The 90-day mark [when Trump’s pause on refugee resettlement ends] is round April, so we want Pakistan to provide them [Afghans] a bit bit of additional time. We hope they may however we haven’t gotten any optimistic indications via motion, solely phrases. All of the motion we’re seeing is damaging,” says VanDiver.
“If nothing adjustments these individuals [Afghans] are in actual bother.”
Asmat Ullah Shah, the Pakistan authorities’s chief commissioner for Afghan refugees in Islamabad, says Afghan nationals awaiting resettlement maintain no authorized standing as per Pakistani regulation.
However, he insists, authorities haven’t taken any motion towards them as a result of embassies and worldwide organisations have dedicated to transferring them to different international locations.
“When issues started to extend, affecting Pakistan’s safety, a timeframe was set for these embassies to fulfil their commitments and guarantee resettlement. However, some have evaded their guarantees,” he says.
Whereas a courtroom has given reduction till the tip of June to some Afghan refugees in Pakistan, that doesn’t cowl the 4 guitarist women and their households, who don’t have the documentation wanted for that non permanent reprieve.
Saeed Husain, a founding member of the Joint Motion Committee for Refugees (JAC-R), an advocacy platform for Afghan refugees in Pakistan, blames the disaster on Western international locations that had promised to soak up Afghan refugees however haven’t processed purposes of these nonetheless in limbo in international locations like Pakistan.
“Their lives have been on pause for the final 4 years. They haven’t been in a position to get an training or discover jobs,” he says, including that Pakistan’s transfer to now ship these refugees “again to Afghanistan is basically giving them a demise sentence”.
A letter to Trump
Once they realized about Trump’s pause on refugee entries, after which Pakistan’s plans to deport Afghans, the women say they couldn’t consider the information.
“We had been disillusioned many instances after getting hopes of going overseas. We’d be ready to listen to excellent news, however would then discover out that it may possibly’t occur,” Yasemin says. “However the current information was nonetheless very surprising to us.”
The women and their households know that going again to Afghanistan would seemingly imply giving up on music for good.
Zakia says she needs to change into an expert guitarist. She’s nonetheless unhappy about her father breaking her earlier guitar out of concern it could be discovered by the Taliban. “That evening was very arduous for me. I cried so much,” she says. However after arriving in Pakistan, all the women acquired new guitars from their trainer.
In the meantime, Shukriya misses going to the music faculty again house. “I miss the time in Kabul after we performed collectively, talked (to our buddies) after observe and ate collectively,” she says, recalling what she is aware of she gained’t be capable to relive if she have been to return to Kabul now.
However Cordola and the women refuse to surrender.
The trainer has been reaching out to musicians and other people with contacts within the US authorities to make the relocation attainable.
“I’m sending out messages to individuals who can maybe contact the higher echelons within the American authorities. The women have collaborated with a few of the most well-known musicians within the US and UK. We’re not on the lookout for further favours, however to get them alternatives,” he says.
Cordola says he has additionally written an open letter to Trump on behalf of the younger musicians, urging the US president to permit them into the nation.
In his letter, the musician wrote that if the women are denied the prospect to resettle to the US, they are going to be deported again to Afghanistan, the place they are going to be vulnerable to being subjected to “imprisonment, and even punishment by demise”.
“They’re able to assimilate and contribute. They aren’t there to take. They need to be part of the American dream,” he says. “We’re prepared to go and play a bit live performance for President Trump if he would have an interest.”
The women, Cordola provides, is also relocated to different international locations which might be “prepared to welcome them and supply authorized and protected residence”, including {that a} main advocate for feminine Afghan musicians is considering relocating them to Northern Eire’s Belfast, a UNESCO-recognised metropolis for its music.
Most of all, the women simply need to keep collectively – in whichever a part of the world can have them.
“Once I’m out of right here, it’s my dream for all the women to return collectively and stand sturdy on our toes. I can’t do it alone. When all of us women come along with Mr Lanny on the identical place, we are going to do one thing,” says Yasemin.
Fauzia, Yasemin and Uzra’s mom, says she is grateful to Pakistan for internet hosting them. However she is aware of that the household’s future hinges on Western governments giving them sanctuary quickly. “Our lives have been in danger in Afghanistan and even in Pakistan there isn’t any peace. Whether or not it’s the US or every other authorities, we request assist for these whose lives are in peril,” she says.
Till then, the women have their guitars, their music and their desires to dwell with.
“At any time when I’m unhappy, I maintain my guitar and neglect the entire disappointment,” says Yasemin. “It has modified my life.”
