Unesco-listed musical instrument stifled in Afghanistan

Wood shavings littered the floor of Sakhi's cramped workshop in the Afghan city of Herat as another rubab, the national musical instrument of his homeland, took shape under his deft hands.

Sakhi has crafted two rubabs a month for decades, and he refuses to set down his tools even as a Taliban crackdown strangles music in Afghanistan.

"I know only this work and I need to make money somehow," said Sakhi, surrounded by rubabs in different stages of completion.

But far more important to him than money is the "cultural value", said the craftsman in his fifties, whose name has been changed for his safety along with those of others interviewed by AFP.

"The value of this work for me is... the heritage it holds. The heritage must not be lost," he said.

The UN agency Unesco agrees, recognising in December the art of crafting and playing the rubab as intangible cultural heritage in Afghanistan, Iran, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.