There is an outrageous country where the Internet has been cut off for two years and 6 million people continue to be affected.

Modern people's lives are heavily dependent on the Internet, and if you are unable to connect to the Internet, you may find it difficult to contact your family or workplace, or you may be unable to access entertainment such as SNS or video sharing services. and various problems arise. For this reason, it is important for internet connections to be as stable as possible, but the entire state of Tigray in northern Ethiopia has been cut off from the internet for two years, leaving as many as 6 million people without access to the internet. it is continuing.

Six million silenced: A two-year internet outage in Ethiopia | Context
https://www.context.news/digital-rights/six-million-people-in-the-dark-tigrays-two-year-internet-outage

Since an armed conflict broke out in Tigray between the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the Ethiopian government in November 2020, a state of conflict has continued at the time of writing, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has designated Tigray as a danger level 4. The situation continues to be tense.

As the above-mentioned conflict continues, the Ethiopian government has cut off Tigray from the internet in the name of ``curbing violence,'' and the internet connection has not been restored at the time of writing. As a result, approximately 6 million people living in Tigray have been blocked from accessing the internet for two years.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has applied satellite phone service to residents of Tigray as a temporary workaround, and says it has supported 116,000 communications so far. The World Food Program also reports that half of Tigray's people face severe food insecurity, but a lack of internet access is hampering humanitarian assistance.

Tedros Adhanom, an Ethiopian-born director of the World Health Organization, said at a press conference in London, ``We don't even know who has died and who is alive,'' expressing the current lack of information. I am appealing. Political analyst Goytom Gebreluel also said, ``Access to communications and humanitarian aid has become a bargaining chip for the Ethiopian government. Those bargaining chips are used as leverage both in Tigray and the international community.'' ”, he points out.

A spokesperson for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said: ``There is not just one on/off switch for the internet. Security and administrative issues in Tigray need to be cleared to facilitate internet restoration efforts. ” states. On the other hand, a TPLF advisor countered, saying, 'Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed does not want to restore the internet. This issue is political.'

The Tigray region is not the first time that the Internet has been shut down in Ethiopia. For example, in July 2020, internet access was unavailable across Ethiopia for 23 days. Ethnic conflicts in Ethiopia were intensifying before and after the internet shutdown in July 2020, and it has been reported that the government may have shut down the internet to suppress ethnic conflicts. The case from July 2020 is explained in detail in the article below.

Hate speech on Facebook is leading to genocide in Ethiopia - GIGAZINE

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