Internet suspended in Mauritania

Mauritania

25 June - 4 July, 2019 (10 days)

Local Impact

According to a report by global Internet watchdog Netblocks, Mauritania went into a near-complete Internet blackout following contested presidential elections held on Saturday, 25th June. A real-time network measurement by Netblocks showed that the country had been disconnected with widespread mobile and fixed-line Internet disruptions amidst the election controversy.

Cause Documentation

What’s happening in #Mauritania is unbelievable. It’s clear the candidate supported by the current president is losing the elections. As I am writing this tweet army units have been deployed in Nouakchott, internet connection interrupted.

— Abdoulaye Sow (@Papissow) June 23, 2019

Data and Analysis

Following a contested presidential election in Mauritania, an Internet shutdown was put into place at approximately 15:30 GMT on June 25 as seen in the CAIDA IODA figure below – a significant drop in routed network prefixes occurred for several hours, while Active Probing and Darknet traffic sources dropped significantly.

Oracle Internet Intelligence Country Statistics graph for Mauritania, June 25, 2019

CAIDA IODA graph for Mauritania, June 25, 2019

Network diversity within the country is extremely limited. Looking at the figure for AS29544 (Mauritanian Telecommunication Company) below, it is clear that the routing instability in the country-level graph is related to this network’s routes essentially being removed from the Internet for that multi-hour period. Internet connectivity began to return across the country on July 3.

Internet Shutdowns

Mauritania