On Tuesday 17 August, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan two weeks before the U.S. was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war. Since then, we have seen footage of desperate Afghanis trying to flee that country, amidst threats of death by the Taliban. To help us analyse the collapse of Afghanistan, we talk to Farkhondeh Akbari, a human rights activist and researcher who has investigated human rights violation by armed parties in Afghanistan, and currently based at the Australian National University.