Cloudflare’s latest Internet disruptions report reveals that government-directed shutdowns, power failures and geopolitical conflict continue to threaten connectivity across the Middle East and Africa, with Iraq accounting for 18 of 19 government-directed shutdowns worldwide.
Cloudflare has published new research highlighting the vulnerability of Internet connectivity across the Middle East and Africa (MEA), where government-directed shutdowns, electricity failures and geopolitical conflict continue to disrupt digital infrastructure.
The company’s Q3 2026 Internet Disruptions Report, published through its Cloudflare Radar platform, recorded 49 Internet disruptions worldwide between July and September 2026.
Government-directed shutdowns accounted for 19 incidents, while power outages were responsible for 14 disruptions across 10 countries. Natural disasters caused a further five incidents.
The findings highlight the dependence of Internet connectivity on electricity supplies, telecommunications infrastructure, government policies and environmental conditions.
Iraq dominates government-directed shutdowns
Iraq accounted for 18 of the 19 government-directed Internet shutdowns recorded globally during the quarter.
The restrictions were introduced around national examinations, with individual shutdowns lasting between 15 and 90 minutes.
Most occurred between 26 August and 28 September, demonstrating how government decisions can directly affect connectivity across a country.
Although relatively short, the repeated disruptions illustrate how restrictions introduced for specific purposes can also affect businesses, individuals and digital services.
Elsewhere in the region, renewed fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region coincided with a government-directed Internet shutdown lasting 10 days.
Cloudflare recorded a 100% decline in Internet traffic in the affected region, while national HTTP traffic fell by up to 30%.
The incident highlighted the vulnerability of communications infrastructure during periods of political instability and humanitarian crisis.
Power failures expose infrastructure weaknesses
Electricity disruptions were the second-largest cause of Internet outages globally during the third quarter.
Cloudflare recorded 14 power-related incidents across 10 countries, including disruptions in Kenya, Eswatini, Botswana and Gabon.
Eswatini also experienced planned load-shedding, demonstrating how constrained electricity supplies can affect telecommunications networks.
The findings reinforce the importance of reliable power for mobile base stations, routers, data centres and Internet interconnection facilities.
Outside MEA, a power failure at an interconnection facility in Honduras affected at least 11 major service providers.
During the approximately three-hour outage, national HTTP traffic declined by 63%.
The incident demonstrated how failures at major traffic exchange facilities can have nationwide consequences when sufficient redundancy is unavailable.
Natural disasters and technical failures
Natural disasters also caused significant connectivity disruptions during the quarter.
In Guam, Super Typhoon Bavi followed Sinlaku by less than three months, resulting in two major storm-related Internet disruptions within a single year.
Meanwhile, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake in Colombia damaged fibre-optic infrastructure, contributing to an Internet disruption lasting approximately four-and-a-half days.
Cloudflare also identified incidents affecting established technology networks.
A cooling system failure at a Phoenix data centre caused a near-total decline in Internet traffic associated with Namecheap.
Portugal’s MEO telecommunications network also experienced an outage following a reported mass attack.
These incidents demonstrate that even mature digital infrastructure can remain vulnerable to technical failures and security-related disruptions.
Implications for regional businesses
Cloudflare’s findings underline the importance of digital resilience as organisations across the Middle East and Africa become increasingly dependent on cloud services, digital payments and connected operations.
For enterprises operating across multiple countries, disruptions to local electricity supplies or telecommunications networks can affect business-critical applications and services.
The report highlights the importance of backup power, network redundancy, alternative connectivity routes and geographically distributed infrastructure.
Business continuity planning is also becoming increasingly important as organisations expand their use of cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence and other Internet-dependent technologies.
The findings suggest that strengthening connectivity will require co-operation between governments, telecommunications providers, cloud operators and enterprises.
As Digital Transformation accelerates across MEA, Cloudflare’s research demonstrates that reliable Internet access depends not only on network performance but also on the resilience of the physical infrastructure and services supporting it.
Cloudflare Radar will continue monitoring Internet connectivity worldwide to provide visibility into disruptions and the infrastructure dependencies affecting digital services.
