Ethiopian businesses lost USD 145.7 million last year because of the internet shutdown in Tigray, according to a recent research by Top10VPN, a London-based VPN review organization that assesses online privacy, security, and freedom. Affected were more than a million people online.
Internet outages cost the nation USD 100 million in 2020 and USD 164.5 million in 2021, when they impacted an additional 21.3 million people. With no access to the internet for an entire year (a total of 8760 hours), digital payment systems, businesses, and human rights groups' efforts to use social media to document reported crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing were all crippled in Tigray, home to over 5 million people before the war.
Many people have died and thousands have been displaced as a result of the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray area. However, companies have lost millions of dollars in income as a result of the conflict as well, since the internet has been completely shut down for the last year. After power has been restored in the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle after a peace agreement negotiated between the government and Tigray rebels in November, an internet service resumed partially.