Government-ordered and conflict-driven internet shutdowns cost Sudan an estimated US $1.12 billion in 2024, the third-heaviest economic blow worldwide after Pakistan and Myanmar, according to the annual Cost of Internet Shutdowns report by Top10VPN.
How the losses stack up
| Rank | Country | Outage cost (US $) | People affected | Hours offline* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pakistan | 1.62 bn | 125 m | 5,699 |
| 2 | Myanmar | 1.58 bn | 54 m | 8,784 |
| 3 | Sudan | 1.12 bn | 23.4 m | ≈ 12,700 |
*Includes full blackouts, social-media blocks and 2G “throttling.”
Why Sudan’s bill is so high
- Nationwide blackout (Feb 2024): Fighting between General al-Burhan’s Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) knocked out backbone facilities in Khartoum; many ISPs stayed dark for 10 days and only fully restored links in May after rerouting traffic via Port Sudan.
- Rolling regional cuts: Additional switch-offs hit Khartoum, Omdurman, Darfur and Kordofan throughout the year as both sides tried to block images of atrocities and hamper battlefield coordination.
- Infrastructure attacks: Shelling destroyed fibre lines and power hubs, forcing operators to shut down or throttle networks for safety.
- Centralised architecture: A handful of state-licensed providers makes it easy for authorities or armed groups to “pull the plug,” amplifying economic fallout.
Ripple effects across society
| Sector hit | Impact details |
|---|---|
| Finance & commerce | Mobile-money transfers and point-of-sale networks froze, paralyzing salaries, remittances and daily trade. Small online retailers lost entire holiday sales cycles. |
| Health & aid logistics | Tele-medicine links collapsed; NGOs reported delays moving food and medical convoys because satellite and VSAT bandwidth was rationed for security comms. |
| Education | Some 800,000 university students — already displaced by the war — lost access to remote-learning platforms and digital libraries for weeks. |
| Journalism & human-rights reporting | Blackouts concealed front-line atrocities and hindered fact-checking, prompting Freedom House to cite connectivity cuts as a tool for “information control amid mass abuses.” |
A regional and global picture
Top10VPN logged 167 major shutdowns in 28 countries, costing the world economy US $7.69 billion—a 16 % drop from 2023, yet with a record 88,788 hours of deliberate disruption.
Sub-Saharan Africa absorbed US $1.56 billion of that hit; Sudan alone accounted for more than two-thirds of the regional total.
What happens next?
Digital-rights groups urge Sudan’s warring factions to keep networks running under the Juba Declaration on Humanitarian Connectivity brokered in April, though neither SAF nor RSF has formally signed. Meanwhile, telecom operators are lobbying for protected corridors to repair backbone links and install microwave redundancies to shorten future outages.
“Cutting the internet during conflict cripples the economy, blocks life-saving information and deepens humanitarian crises,” said a Khartoum-based civil-society coalition in a joint appeal this week. “Sudan cannot afford another billion-dollar blackout in 2025.”
