‘Harassed here too’: Afghan artists find no sanctuary in Pakistan

Musicians had hoped to keep their art alive after fleeing Taliban but now face crackdown on refugees

Ajmal Haikalzada, 44, first became a refugee when his artist father left Afghanistan for Pakistan during the Soviet-Afghan war in the 1980s. In 2001, then a musician, he returned, singing and performing across the country of his birth after the US toppled the Taliban.

Two decades later, he fled once again as the Taliban took over Kabul.