Ethiopia: Internet Restored After 5-Day Black-Out Following Failed Coup

How will you cope if you had no access to the Internet for about 5 days? Well, that is what Ethiopians just passed through.

In what appears to new countermeasure tactics by African governments, the Internet was shut down in Ethiopia after the failed coup attempt on Saturday, June 22.

After over 100 hours of no Internet access, an on-line rights group, NetBlocks have released a statement this morning to say the Internet has been restored back in the country.

This will no doubt come as good news to citizens who no doubt have been affected by the sanction.

Internet was shut down in the entire country after the failed coup in Ethiopia's northern Amhara regional state last Saturday.

Many critics and rights groups questioned the move saying it had no justification and had no impact on the coup or activities after it.

Ethiopians have not hidden their excitement at the news this morning by NetBlocks which said:

“Internet access is being restored across Ethiopia as of 6:00 a.m. UTC Thursday 27 June according to network measurement data. Current levels are approaching 90% of normal connectivity levels prior to the disruption.”

Internet users in the country have confirmed the return of connectivity with posts on social media. The government and state monopoly operator, Ethio Telecom, has yet to comment on the almost five-day outage.

Ethiopia is not the first country to shut down the Internet in the country for what it says are political / security reasons. Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Mauritania have all shut down the Internet in their respective countries in this year alone for one reason or the other.

Network connectivity levels generally correlate to Internet availability in a given country. Only between 2% and 3% of Ethiopia’s networks remained reachable, appearing to belong to technical staff and government officials.

Africanews reports that available data indicate that the outage rapidly progressed to have a nationwide impact, following a brief partial disruption affecting parts of the north, including Amhara State, and some eastern regions.

By the time word of the coup attempt began to spread, some 98% of Ethiopia was already off-line.

Header Image Credit: Quartz