Burkina Faso Suffers Second Major Internet Disruption in Six Weeks
Early on Sunday, January 23, 2022, Internet connectivity in Burkina Faso dropped sharply, marking the country's third significant disruption in as many months. The outage followed reports of heavy gunfire linked to an army mutiny in the capital, Ouagadougou. According to the New York Times, mobile Internet services were shut down amidst the unrest.
Data from Cloudflare Radar indicates that national traffic fell considerably after approximately 09:15 UTC and remained suppressed for over a day. This incident follows a mobile Internet shutdown on January 10, 2022, reportedly related to a coup plot, and a similar disruption in late November 2021.
The disruption affected the country's primary Internet Service Providers. Both Orange and FasoNet, the two leading ISPs, along with Telecel Faso, saw significant traffic losses immediately after the 09:15 UTC drop. Although some traffic from FasoNet appeared the following morning around 10:00 UTC, it was less than half the volume observed at the same time on prior days.
Impact was not limited to mobile traffic, despite mobile devices normally accounting for about 70% of the country's Internet usage. Desktop and fixed-line traffic were also visibly affected.
Three Nations Currently Offline
With the situation in Burkina Faso, three countries were concurrently facing major Internet disruptions, albeit for distinct reasons.
In Yemen, a four-day-long outage persisted due to airstrikes that damaged a telecommunications building in Al-Hudaydah, the landing point for the FALCON undersea cable.
Meanwhile, Tonga continued to experience a nine-day outage caused by damage to its undersea cable, the result of the major volcanic eruption in the South Pacific archipelago.
A Challenging Start to 2022
The series of events underscores widespread connectivity fragility early this year:
- The Gambia endured a multi-hour outage on January 4 due to a cable problem.
- Kazakhstan faced a six-day shutdown from January 5 to 11 amidst civil unrest.
- Burkina Faso experienced a mobile Internet shutdown on January 10 related to an alleged coup plot.
- Tonga's ongoing outage began January 15 following the volcanic eruption.
- Yemen's outage began January 20, caused by airstrikes on a key telecommunications hub.
- This latest disruption in Burkina Faso began January 23, linked to military mutiny.
Connectivity in Burkina Faso was restored on the night of January 24, around 20:00 UTC, after a roughly 35-hour blackout, with Orange and FasoNet returning online.
Similarly, Internet access was restored in Yemen later that same evening. Traffic began recovering around 22:00 UTC and had returned to normal levels by the following morning, ending the four-day outage.
