Hannah Ellis-Petersen in Delhi

Islamabad, Pakistan – On a pleasant February afternoon in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, the sound of strumming guitars fills a small bedroom in a two-storey home that houses tenants from neighbouring Afghanistan.

A flight of slippery marble stairs leads to the room on the first floor, where the bright rays of the sun enter through the window and bounce off the musical instruments, which belong to four young guitarists.

Yasemin and Uzra are sisters, as are Zakiya and Shukriya. This is where Yasemin and Uzra are now living with their family.

The bedroom is where the girls spend hours at a stretch practicing and jamming from Saturday to Thursday. Friday is their weekly day off.

On the day Al Jazeera visits, the girls are busy tuning their guitars. They tease one another as they strum squeaky, off-key chords in between.

As she tunes her sturdy wooden guitar with her dependable red pick, Yasemin turns towards her bandmates and guides them in adjusting theirs.

The girls learned to play the guitar at Miraculous Love Kids, a music school for children in Kabul set up in 2016 by Lanny Cordola, a rock musician from California. The girls, whose first language is Dari, also learned to speak basic English from Cordola in Kabul, where they attended regular school as well.

Their world was turned upside down when the Taliban re-took power on August 15, 2021, after 20 years. The girls were afraid to step outside their homes following a spate of restrictions imposed on women. Cordola, who left Kabul for Islamabad the day the Taliban returned to power, began hatching plans to pluck his students and their families out of Afghanistan so the girls could continue to pursue their music dreams.

Three of the seven girls were relocated to the US over the past few months. Yasemin, Zakia, Shukriya and Uzra – and their families – were supposed to fly on February 5.

“It felt like we had everything in place. They [the US government] did all their medical tests, vetting, screening and interviews. We had the date,” says Cordola.

Then Donald Trump took office.

Almost immediately, Trump issued a series of executive orders, including one that suspended all refugee programmes for 90 days. “Now, it is all new again,” Cordola says, adding that the “devastating” move has postponed the relocation plans “indefinitely”.

But things would get even worse.

On March 7, the Pakistani government announced its own plans to deport all Afghan nationals, even those with proper documentation, back to their country by June 30.

For those Afghan refugees hoping to relocate to a Western country – like Yasemin, Zakia, Shukriya and Uzra – the deadline to leave Pakistan is even more imminent: Islamabad has said it will begin deporting them on April 1.

‘Girl with a guitar’

To gather at Yasemin and Uzra’s house for practice, Cordola picks Zakia and Shukirya up in a van from their home a few blocks away.

“We practise for about three to four hours,” says Cordola.

In a floral lilac dress and a white headscarf, Zakia’s slender fingers hit the chords on her guitar, which bears her initial, Z. She taps her feet to match the rhythm – Chris Martin of Coldplay is her favourite musician.

“RM is my favourite. I like his dancing and rapping… it’s beautiful,” says Shukriya, as her teacher, Cordola, shakes his head in disbelief – and gentle disapproval.

Uzra, Yasemin’s younger 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 soft, husky vocals. “She is a normal seven-year-old in a lot of ways. But when she is in the studio, she is very, very focused. I can’t joke with her when she is in there,” says Cordola about his youngest student.

Then Cordola joins them in the jam session, strumming his black guitar. The girls nod in tandem and break into “Girl with a Guitar”, their own original, instrumental song.

Practice ends at 1pm, and the girls go about the rest of their day – having lunch, praying, helping their mothers with chores and spending time with their families.

Uzra, Yasemin says, is friends with the neighbours’ child, and always finds ways to step out of the house to play with her. Almost on cue, the little guitarist dashes out of the room.

Turning ‘Unstoppable’

On days when the girls manage to find some leisure time for themselves while the sun is still out, they and their siblings visit Islamabad’s parks and amusement spaces with their teacher.

The green F-9 Park is also a favourite. There, Zakia sits on its fresh, dewy grass while Uzra enjoys swaying to and fro on the swings. Shukriya is dreaming of visiting a nearby food street, where she’s hoping for a treat – pani puri, soup, ice cream and the classic samosa. Yasemin says she’s a fan of rice and loves eating daal chawal (lentils with rice). To Zakia, chicken biryani and pani puri are the best food that Pakistan has to offer.

But music is what makes the girls happiest – and is what made it possible for them to connect with multiple Grammy-nominated Australian singer and songwriter Sia.

After they recorded a rendition of her female empowerment anthem, Unstoppable, in 2024, the Aussie vocalist sent the girls a special message praising their talent.

“Thank you so much for singing ‘Unstoppable’ and for your support. I love you so much. I love you so much. I really feel for what you’re going through,” she said in a video message to the girls.

The video of Sia’s track is shot with the girls singing against the backdrop of lush green parks and atop the Shakarparian Hills. The music was recorded at the studio of Pakistani record producer Sarmad Ghafoor, a friend of Cordola’s. The song was released on March 18.

At the time they recorded the song, three girls from Cordola’s Kabul school who have now moved to the US were also with Yasemin, Zakia, Shukriya and Uzra in Islamabad.

When Sia reacted to their performance in a video message for them, the girls couldn’t believe it.

“She is someone who didn’t need to make a video for us, but she did. She is a really kind and inspirational woman,” says Yasemin. “She spoke with her heart and gave us a lot of hope. Sometimes we lose hope and think that we won’t be able to do what we want to do in life. But her powerful words really inspired and motivated us.”

Selling candy to strumming a guitar

Nothing about Yasemin’s life today resembles what it did seven years ago, when she first met Cordola.

At his school, Cordola “wanted to focus on girls’ education and rights”, he says. “It’s education through the arts.” He convinced the parents of several children who worked on the streets, especially those of girls, to allow them at his music school.

He first met Yasemin at a park where she sold candy and chewing gum, while her father washed cars nearby.

“I was 11 years old when I first met Mr Lanny in 2017,” Yasemin recalls. “I first saw Mr Lanny in the park with a lot of children. At the time, I did not talk to him because I was very shy and also afraid of seeing people gathered in one place. The fear of an explosion in such a space was always in my mind.”

Yasemin’s father initially didn’t want her to join the music school, worried about how it would be viewed in the conservative Afghan society. “But later when he got familiar with Mr Lanny, he agreed to it,” she says.

Cordola recalls that Yasemin’s father gave in when he learned that his daughter would not need to work in the park any more. “I gave a monthly stipend to the children who did well at the school,” he says.

Fauzia, Yasemin and Uzra’s mother, was happy when her daughter began studying music. “I felt good because [through the guitar] she [Yasemin] wanted to depend on herself for her future. Now, I feel proud that she is not only doing this for herself but also for those who need support.”

She was nicknamed Jellybean by Cordola after being confused with another girl with the same name at the Kabul school. “When Mr Lanny called our name ‘Yasemin’, both of us would respond to him. This caused a lot of confusion,” she chuckles.

In the same neighbourhood in which Yasemin and her father worked, Zakia and her father used to sell sunflower seeds. Cordola gave Zakia a visiting card and told her to visit the music school with her father, 52-year-old Muhammad Sabir.

“The next day, I went there with my father to Miraculous. There, I saw the guitars and other girls playing it. I really liked it. Initially, my mother didn’t allow me because she was sceptical and scared about Mr Lanny. But I insisted on trying my luck. After I went there, I began practising the guitar and drawing, and never went back to the hill to work again,” says Zakia.

Shukriya, who first visited the school with her elder sibling out of curiosity, was so fascinated by the guitars that she too soon joined Cordola’s growing class.

Their father, Cordola recalls, was excited at the idea of sending his daughters to his music school. “Zakia’s father was smiling when I first met him. He asked, ‘Can we come now?’ But I told him to come the next day. He came the next day and said, ‘this is great.’”

A tall Sabir smiles as he recalls that time. Sitting at his residence in Islamabad, he says he was “happy for the children and supported them to play the guitar”.

“I liked music myself before I even met Mr Lanny,” says Sabir. “When the opportunity came, I didn’t want my daughters to lose it. It was for their better future.”

It all changed with the Taliban’s return.

Suddenly, the girls were afraid to leave their homes following a spate of restrictions imposed on women. “When the situation in Afghanistan worsened, I told the girls not to use it (the guitar). The Taliban don’t allow music and consider it haram (forbidden). I hid Shukriya’s small guitar and broke Zakia’s because it was bigger,” says Sabir.

Yasemin recalls one time when she stepped out to go to the bazaar.

“I wasn’t wearing a mask and the Taliban pointed a gun at me asking me to wear it right there and then,” she says, referring to a face veil. “It was really hard, especially for women in Afghanistan.”

Cordola, meanwhile, worked with donors to raise money to get passports made for the families of his students, and to hire guides to bring them to the border – and then across into Pakistan.

After many false starts, the seven girls and their families finally made it to Pakistan in April 2022. Today, Cordola funds their rent, expenses – and the girls’ guitars – through donations.

But all of those efforts now appear at risk.

In recent years, Pakistan has stepped up its deportation of Afghan refugees – some of whom have spent most or all of their lives in Pakistan.

Pakistan deported 842,429 Afghan refugees, per the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), between September 2023 and February 2025.

According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, about 40,000 Afghans in Pakistan await resettlement after “almost 80,000” were welcomed by different countries. At least 10,000 to 15,000 among the refugees still in Pakistan were cleared for resettlement in the US, according to #AfghanEvac, a coalition of US veterans and advocacy groups, before Trump blocked their move.

Philippa Candler, the country representative of the UNHCR, in a statement said: “Forced return to Afghanistan could place some people at increased risk. We urge Pakistan to continue to provide safety to Afghans at risk, irrespective of their documentation status.”

He also has an appeal to the government of Pakistan.

“The 90-day mark [when Trump’s pause on refugee resettlement ends] is around April, so we would like Pakistan to give them [Afghans] a little bit of extra time. We hope they will but we haven’t gotten any positive indications through action, only words. All the action we’re seeing is negative,” says VanDiver.

“If nothing changes these people [Afghans] are in real trouble.”

Asmat Ullah Shah, the Pakistan government’s chief commissioner for Afghan refugees in Islamabad, says Afghan nationals awaiting resettlement hold no legal status as per Pakistani law.

But, he insists, authorities have not taken any action against them because embassies and international organisations have committed to moving them to other countries.

“When problems began to increase, affecting Pakistan’s security, a timeframe was set for these embassies to fulfil their commitments and ensure resettlement. But, some have evaded their promises,” he says.

While a court has given relief until the end of June to some Afghan refugees in Pakistan, that doesn’t cover the four guitarist girls and their families, who don’t have the documentation needed for that temporary reprieve.

“Their lives have been on pause for the last four years. They haven’t been able to get an education or find jobs,” he says, adding that Pakistan’s move to now send these refugees “back to Afghanistan is essentially giving them a death sentence”.

A letter to Trump

When they learned about Trump’s pause on refugee entries, and then Pakistan’s plans to deport Afghans, the girls say they couldn’t believe the news.

“We had been disappointed many times after getting hopes of going abroad. We’d be waiting to hear good news, but would then find out that it can’t happen,” Yasemin says. “But the recent news was still very shocking to us.”

The girls and their families know that going back to Afghanistan would likely mean giving up on music for good.

Zakia says she wants to become a professional guitarist. She’s still sad about her father breaking her earlier guitar out of fear it would be found by the Taliban. “That night was very hard for me. I cried a lot,” she says. But after arriving in Pakistan, all the girls received new guitars from their teacher.

Meanwhile, Shukriya misses going to the music school back home. “I miss the time in Kabul when we played together, talked (to our friends) after practice and ate together,” she says, recalling what she knows she won’t be able to relive if she were to return to Kabul now.

But Cordola and the girls refuse to give up.

The teacher has been reaching out to musicians and people with contacts in the US government to make the relocation possible.

“I am sending out messages to people who can perhaps contact the upper echelons in the American government. The girls have collaborated with some of the most well-known musicians in the US and UK. We are not looking for extra favours, but to get them opportunities,” he says.

Cordola says he has also written an open letter to Trump on behalf of the young musicians, urging the US president to allow them into the country.

In his letter, the musician wrote that if the girls are denied the chance to resettle to the US, they will be deported back to Afghanistan, where they will be at risk of being subjected to “imprisonment, and even punishment by death”.

“They are ready to assimilate and contribute. They are not there to take. They want to be a part of the American dream,” he says. “We are willing to go and play a little concert for President Trump if he would be interested.”

The girls, Cordola adds, could also be relocated to other countries that are “willing to welcome them and provide legal and safe residence”, adding that a leading advocate for female Afghan musicians is interested in relocating them to Northern Ireland’s Belfast, a UNESCO-recognised city for its music.

Most of all, the girls just want to stay together – in whichever part of the world will have them.

“When I’m out of here, it is my dream for all the girls to come together and stand strong on our feet. I can’t do it alone. When all of us girls come together with Mr Lanny at the same place, we will do something,” says Yasemin.

Fauzia, Yasemin and Uzra’s mother, says she is grateful to Pakistan for hosting them. But she knows that the family’s future hinges on Western governments giving them sanctuary soon. “Our lives were at risk in Afghanistan and even in Pakistan there is no peace. Whether it is the US or any other government, we request help for those whose lives are in danger,” she says.

Until then, the girls have their guitars, their music and their dreams to live with.

“Whenever I’m sad, I hold my guitar and forget all of the sadness,” says Yasemin. “It has changed my life.”