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 residence that homes tenants from neighbouring Afghanistan.
A flight of slippery marble stairs results in the room on the primary flooring, the place the intense rays of the solar enter by means of 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 residing with their household.
The bed room is the place the ladies spend hours at a stretch practising and jamming from Saturday to Thursday. Friday is their weekly break day.
On the day Al Jazeera visits, the ladies 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 monitor by King.
As she tunes her sturdy picket guitar along with her reliable crimson decide, Yasemin turns in direction of her bandmates and guides them in adjusting theirs.
The ladies 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 ladies, 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 ladies had 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 ladies might 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 ultimately resettling them and their households in the US, which had introduced a programme to soak up Afghan allies and refugees who needed to flee Taliban rule.
Three of the seven women had been relocated to the US over the previous few months. Yasemin, Zakia, Shukriya and Uzra – and their households – had been purported to fly on February 5.
“It felt like we had every little thing in place. They [the US government] did all their medical assessments, vetting, screening and interviews. We had the date,” says Cordola.
Then Donald Trump took workplace.
Nearly instantly, Trump issued a sequence of government 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’ll start deporting them on April 1.
‘Woman with a guitar’
To assemble at Yasemin and Uzra’s home for apply, Cordola picks Zakia and Shukirya up in a van from their residence a number of blocks away.
“We practise for about three to 4 hours,” says Cordola.
In a floral lilac gown and a white headband, Zakia’s slender fingers hit the chords on her guitar, which bears her preliminary, Z. She faucets her ft 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 in addition 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 standard seven-year-old in a whole lot of methods. However when she is within the studio, she may be very, very centered. I can’t joke along 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 ladies nod in tandem and break into “Woman with a Guitar”, their very own unique, instrumental track.
Apply ends at 1pm, and the ladies 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 pals with the neighbours’ little one, and all the time finds methods to step out of the home to play along with her. Nearly on cue, the little guitarist dashes out of the room.
Turning ‘Unstoppable’
On days when the ladies 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, they usually 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 contemporary, dewy grass whereas Uzra enjoys swaying back and forth on the swings. Shukriya is dreaming of visiting a close-by meals road, the place she’s hoping for a deal with – pani puri, soup, ice cream and the traditional samosa. Yasemin says she’s a fan of rice and loves consuming daal chawal (lentils with rice). To Zakia, hen biryani and pani puri are the perfect meals that Pakistan has to supply.
However music is what makes the ladies 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 ladies a particular message praising their expertise.
“Thanks a lot for singing ‘Unstoppable’ and on your help. I really like you a lot. I really like you a lot. I actually really feel for what you’re going by means of,” she mentioned in a video message to the ladies.
The video of Sia’s monitor is shot with the ladies 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 good friend 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 had 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 protecting 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 ladies couldn’t consider it.
“She is somebody who didn’t have to make a video for us, however she did. She is a very sort and inspirational girl,” says Yasemin. “She spoke along with her coronary heart and gave us a whole lot of hope. Generally we lose hope and suppose that we received’t be capable of 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 the moment resembles what it did seven years in the past, when she first met Cordola.
At his faculty, Cordola “needed to give attention to women’ training and rights”, he says. “It’s training by means of the humanities.” He satisfied the mother and father of a number of youngsters 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 bought sweet and chewing gum, whereas her father washed automobiles close by.
“I used to be 11 years previous once I first met Mr Lanny in 2017,” Yasemin recollects. “I first noticed Mr Lanny within the park with a whole lot of youngsters. On the time, I didn’t speak to him as a result of I used to be very shy and likewise afraid of seeing folks gathered in a single place. The concern of an explosion in such an area was all the time in my thoughts.”
Ultimately, Cordola reached out to her by means of one other woman, gave her 150 Afghanis ($2.11) and requested her to go to the music faculty along with her father. “I used to be hesitant at first, however a good friend named Yalda was already going to the college, so I went to Miraculous along 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 affix the music faculty, nervous about how it could be considered within the conservative Afghan society. “However later when he received accustomed to Mr Lanny, he agreed to it,” she says.
Cordola recollects that Yasemin’s father gave in when he realized that his daughter wouldn’t have to 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 glad 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 just isn’t solely doing this for herself but in addition for many who want help.”
She was nicknamed Jellybean by Cordola after being confused with one other woman with the identical title on the Kabul faculty. “When Mr Lanny referred to as our title ‘Yasemin’, each of us would reply to him. This precipitated a whole lot of confusion,” she chuckles.
In the identical neighbourhood wherein 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 along 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 taking part in 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 along 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 concept of sending his daughters to his music faculty. “Zakia’s father was smiling once I first met him. He requested, ‘Can we come now?’ However I informed him to come back the following day. He got here the following 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 “glad 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
Abruptly, the ladies had been afraid to go away their properties following a spate of restrictions imposed on girls. “When the state of affairs in Afghanistan worsened, I informed the ladies 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 greater,” says Sabir.
Yasemin recollects one time when she stepped out to go to the bazaar.
“I wasn’t sporting 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 exhausting, particularly for ladies in Afghanistan.”
Cordola, in the meantime, labored with donors to lift cash to get passports made for the households of his college students, and to rent guides to convey 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. At present, Cordola funds their lease, bills – and the ladies’ guitars – by means of 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 accordance with Pakistan’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs, about 40,000 Afghans in Pakistan await resettlement after “virtually 80,000” had been welcomed by completely different international locations. A minimum of 10,000 to fifteen,000 among the many refugees nonetheless in Pakistan had been cleared for resettlement within the US, in line with #AfghanEvac, a coalition of US veterans and advocacy teams, earlier than Trump blocked their transfer.
Philippa Candler, the nation consultant of the UNHCR, in a press release mentioned: “Compelled return to Afghanistan might place some folks at elevated danger. We urge Pakistan to proceed to offer 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 short-term. Nations 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 enchantment to the federal government of Pakistan.
“The 90-day mark [when Trump’s pause on refugee resettlement ends] is round April, so we wish Pakistan to provide them [Afghans] a bit bit of additional time. We hope they may however we haven’t gotten any constructive indications by means of motion, solely phrases. All of the motion we’re seeing is destructive,” says VanDiver.
“If nothing modifications these folks [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 legislation.
However, he insists, authorities haven’t taken any motion towards them as a result of embassies and worldwide organisations have dedicated to shifting 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 aid till the top 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 short-term 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 functions 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 capable of get an training or discover jobs,” he says, including that Pakistan’s transfer to now ship these refugees “again to Afghanistan is actually giving them a dying sentence”.
A letter to Trump
Once they realized about Trump’s pause on refugee entries, after which Pakistan’s plans to deport Afghans, the ladies 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 could possibly’t occur,” Yasemin says. “However the latest information was nonetheless very stunning to us.”
The ladies and their households know that going again to Afghanistan would seemingly imply giving up on music for good.
Zakia says she desires to turn out to be 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 exhausting for me. I cried lots,” she says. However after arriving in Pakistan, all the ladies obtained new guitars from their trainer.
In the meantime, Shukriya misses going to the music faculty again residence. “I miss the time in Kabul after we performed collectively, talked (to our pals) after apply and ate collectively,” she says, recalling what she is aware of she received’t be capable of relive if she had been to return to Kabul now.
However Cordola and the ladies refuse to surrender.
The trainer has been reaching out to musicians and folks 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 ladies have collaborated with among the most well-known musicians within the US and UK. We’re not in search of 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 ladies are denied the possibility to resettle to the US, they are going to be deported again to Afghanistan, the place they are going to be liable to being subjected to “imprisonment, and even punishment by dying”.
“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 ladies, Cordola provides, may be 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 curious about relocating them to Northern Eire’s Belfast, a UNESCO-recognised metropolis for its music.
Most of all, the ladies 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 ladies to come back collectively and stand sturdy on our ft. I can’t do it alone. When all of us women come along with Mr Lanny on the identical place, we’ll 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 had been in danger in Afghanistan and even in Pakistan there is no such thing as a peace. Whether or not it’s the US or every other authorities, we request assist for these whose lives are at risk,” she says.
Till then, the ladies 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.”