For millions of Afghans, the digital lifeline that tied them to the outside world went dark overnight. Phones fell silent, screens froze, and families scattered across continents suddenly found themselves unable to reach one another.
The sweeping internet blackout, reported late Monday, is being described as the most extensive communication shutdown since the Taliban seized power in 2021. It has left a nation of 43 million in near-total isolation, deepening fears that Afghanistan is sliding back into the iron restrictions of the group’s previous rule.
For Afghans abroad, the rupture has been devastating. “From yesterday there is no communication with a single person,” said Mohammad Hadi, a 30-year-old living in Delhi, whose relatives remain in Kabul. “There is no way to know if they are safe. It is disrupting everything.” Panic rippled through the Afghan diaspora on Tuesday as attempts to call home failed, and flights bound for Kabul were abruptly cancelled.
Inside the country, even established newsrooms were struggling. Local broadcasters admitted they could not maintain normal operations, while international agencies said they had lost contact with their bureaus in the capital.
The Taliban had signaled the move weeks earlier, warning that they intended to cut internet access nationwide to stamp out what they termed “immoral activities.” Provincial officials later promised that an “alternative system” would be installed for essential services, though no details were offered. The directive, they said, came from the group’s elusive leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada.
For Afghans who lived through the 1990s, the echoes are chilling. During its first regime, the Taliban banned television, restricted radio, and sought to erase nearly all forms of mass communication. The blackout appears to revive that impulse — to control not just politics and daily life, but information itself.
The human toll, however, is immediate. Wahida Faizi, an Afghan journalist now in Denmark, described the anguish of losing contact with her family. “It has only been a few hours,” she said, “but for me it feels like a lifetime.”
As uncertainty grows, what remains clear is that the blackout is not simply a technical disruption. It is a message of power, and of control, delivered by a regime determined to seal its borders not only against the outside world, but against the voices of its own people.
Africa Digital News, New York
