Between March 16 and March 23, 2026, VPN connections from Yemen surged 94%, nearly doubling in a single week. The spike began the same night Iran's internet was confirmed at roughly 1% of normal levels, and accelerated as the Houthi movement signalled it was preparing to enter the wider U.S.–Iran war.

This is what our app telemetry data shows, why it happened, and what it means for Yemeni internet users.

How the spike was measured

To understand how Yemeni users responded to the regional crisis, VPN connection data and server destination patterns were tracked from multiple sources.

App telemetry

Connection data from the VPN app was monitored between March 16–23, 2026, with hourly granularity across 54 destination countries. This data showed which server locations Yemeni users chose and how connection patterns evolved as the regional conflict escalated, from Iran's internet dropping to 1% on March 16, through the Houthi military readiness declaration on March 19, to reports of the Houthis formally entering the conflict on March 21–22.

• Data was grouped, not tied to individual users
• Only country-level connection counts and server destination data were used
• No personal information or browsing activity was collected

The data: VPN connections from Yemen surge 94%

VPN connections from Yemen nearly doubled over the seven-day window, rising from approximately 4,200 connections per hour on March 16 to 8,100 per hour by March 23, a 94% increase. The bulk of the initial jump occurred in a single overnight surge of +47.7% between March 16 and March 17.

Why VPN usage is surging in Yemen

The surge is driven by three reinforcing factors: the regional war and Iran's internet blackout, the Houthi movement's pre-existing digital crackdown, and growing civilian anxiety about Yemen's own telecommunications infrastructure being damaged or shut down.

The regional war: U.S.–Israel strikes on Iran

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iranian military installations, nuclear sites, and leadership targets. The campaign triggered a near-total internet blackout in Iran where connectivity dropped by more than 98% within hours of the first strikes, according to Access Now.

By March 6, Iranian internet was measured at approximately 1% of normal levels. As of March 22, the shutdown was still ongoing, making it one of the most sustained and comprehensive internet blackouts in recorded history.

Iran is the Houthi movement's principal sponsor, having supplied the group with weapons, training, and financial support for over a decade. When Iran went dark, Yemeni civilians in Houthi-controlled areas, where the Houthi-run Public Telecommunications Corporation (PTC) controls all fixed-line internet access, entered an acute information vacuum. They could no longer communicate with contacts inside Iran, track the war's trajectory, or gauge whether the conflict would reach their own territory.

The Middle East Eye reported on March 19 that after 20 consecutive days of blackout, even VPN connections into Iran had "largely stopped working." Iranian authorities were actively criminalising VPN use, threatening citizens with legal action for bypassing the shutdown. For Yemenis, the spectacle of a neighbouring allied state losing its entire internet infrastructure was both a warning and a catalyst, many moved to secure VPN access before a similar scenario could play out in Yemen.

The Houthi military escalation

The VPN surge's second acceleration (March 20–21, +16% and +9.5% respectively) coincided directly with escalating signals that the Houthis were preparing to formally enter the war.

On March 19, Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi stated his group was "prepared to respond militarily to developments in the region," declaring that "all options at the military level are possible." That same day, the Soufan Center published an analysis warning that if the Houthis entered the war, they "could serve as a force multiplier for Tehran by further stretching U.S. and coalition military resources."

By March 20–21, events accelerated sharply. The Houthis reinforced their military presence in the port city of Hodeidah, home to Yemen's primary undersea internet cable landing, according to Israeli public broadcaster KAN. Iran launched two ballistic missiles targeting the U.S.–UK base at Diego Garcia, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW). And multiple reports indicated the Houthis had announced their formal entry into the conflict.

For Yemeni civilians, these developments raised an immediate and terrifying question: if the Houthis attack U.S. naval assets, will the U.S. retaliate by striking Yemeni infrastructure, including the telecommunications hub at Hodeidah that connects the country to the internet?

Timeline of events

Yemen's pre-existing censorship environment

The VPN surge didn't emerge from a neutral starting point. Yemenis already live under one of the world's most restrictive digital environments, a reality that made the population both VPN-literate and primed for rapid adoption when the crisis hit.

Houthi control of telecommunications

Since seizing the capital Sanaa in 2014, the Houthi movement has controlled Yemen's telecommunications monopoly. YemenNet and TeleYemen, the country's only fixed-line and international internet providers, operate under the Houthi-run Public Telecommunications Corporation in Sanaa. This gives the group total control over what Yemenis can access online.

The Khabar Agency, citing Yemeni technical sources and human rights monitors, reported that the Houthis have blocked access to more than 200 local and international news websites, including independent Yemeni media outlets, Al Jazeera, Al Arabiya, and international news platforms. X (formerly Twitter) has been restricted using DNS filtering, deep packet inspection (DPI), and forced compliance from ISPs.

The crackdown extends beyond website blocking. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) documented 127 press freedom violations in Yemen during 2025 alone. Journalists face detention under charges of "spreading false news" or "collaborating with enemy entities." The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reported in September 2025 that the Houthi authorities had blocked access to Barran Press, an independent news outlet, describing the move as the Houthis "weaponizing their control of Yemen's telecommunications infrastructure." South24 Center, another independent outlet, had both its primary and alternative domains blocked, first in March 2024 and then again in May 2025.

Banking and mobile restrictions

The digital crackdown extends to financial services. As recently as January 2026, Houthi authorities blocked banking applications on mobile networks in Houthi-controlled areas, a move critics described as "deliberate digital isolation aimed at restricting access to information." The Houthis have also disrupted 4G internet services across large areas, further degrading connectivity for the general population.

Human Rights Watch's 2026 World Report confirmed that all warring parties in Yemen, continue to "shut down and take over media institutions" and impose "arbitrary restrictions" on journalists and information flow. Freedom House ranks Yemen among the world's least free digital environments.

Yemen's internet infrastructure: a single point of failure

Yemen's internet is among the most fragile in the world. The Internet Society gives the country a resilience score of just 30%, meaning it has "low capacity to withstand unexpected faults or challenges to normal operation." Only around 17–24% of Yemen's population has internet access, and the infrastructure that serves them is dangerously concentrated.

The FALCON cable at Hodeidah

Yemen's internet arrives primarily through the FALCON undersea cable, which lands at the port city of Hodeidah on the Red Sea coast. The AAE-1 cable provides a secondary route, but the majority of western Yemen's population, including Sanaa, the capital, depends on the FALCON connection through Hodeidah. Land cables to Saudi Arabia have been cut since the civil war began.

This single-point dependency has already caused nationwide blackouts. In January 2022, coalition airstrikes struck a telecommunications hub in Hodeidah, knocking Yemen entirely offline for 96 hours. A 2020 anchor incident damaging the FALCON cable also caused widespread outages.

Why Hodeidah matters now

The Houthis have reinforced their military presence in Hodeidah in recent days, according to KAN, the Israeli public broadcaster. Hodeidah is strategically critical - it is both Yemen's main port and the landing point for the cables that connect the country to the global internet. If the Houthis use Hodeidah to launch attacks on Red Sea shipping, retaliatory strikes on the port's infrastructure could sever Yemen's internet connection entirely.

The UN Mission to Support the Hudaydah Agreement (UNMHA) received its final two-month mandate in January 2026, with operations ceasing on April 1, 2026. The withdrawal of this international stabilising presence at exactly the moment tensions are escalating around the port compounds the risk.

The broader infrastructure damage

Yemen's telecommunications have suffered catastrophic physical destruction over the past decade of conflict. According to Yemen Science, over 1,100 telecommunications sites were directly targeted by more than 2,760 airstrikes since 2015, destroying 862 facilities. In July–August 2025, a cyberattack on national DNS servers disrupted both fixed and mobile internet access, causing an estimated $6.45 billion in economic losses and affecting over 14 million users.

The Digital Watch Observatory notes that Yemen relies on only two active submarine cables (FALCON and AAE-1) for international internet access, and "the lack of redundancy in the network makes the entire infrastructure highly vulnerable to outages."

Methodology and sources

To analyse the Yemen VPN spike, a mix of firsthand data and independent third-party sources was used:

Internal data:

• VPN app connection data (March 16–23, 2026), anonymous, country-level usage patterns with hourly granularity across 54 destination countries

News and monitoring sources:

• Access Now — Iran internet blackout monitoring and demands for restoration
• NetBlocks / Wikipedia — Iran connectivity tracking (1% of normal as of March 22)
• Iran International — Iran VPN restrictions and Starlink targeting
• Middle East Eye — 20 consecutive days of near-total blackout
• Anadolu Agency — Houthi leader signals military readiness (March 19)
• The Soufan Center — Analysis of Houthi war entry implications
• ISW — Iran launches missiles at Diego Garcia (March 21)
• Türkiye Today / KAN — Houthi reinforcements in Hodeidah; potential war entry timeline
• Ground News — Houthi announcement of entry into regional conflict
• Khabar Agency — 200+ websites blocked by Houthis
• CPJ — Barran Press blocking
• South24 Center — Alternative domain blocking by Houthis
• The New Arab — Houthi control of telecommunications infrastructure
• Human Rights Watch — 2026 World Report on Yemen
• IFJ — 127 press freedom violations documented in 2025
• Internet Society Pulse — Yemen internet resilience score (30%)
• Digital Watch Observatory — Yemen digital profile and cable infrastructure
• Yemen Science — Telecommunications infrastructure destruction data
• UN Press — UNMHA final mandate renewal (expires April 1, 2026)
• ACLED — Middle East conflict tracking, March 2026
• Reuters — Analysis of Houthi war entry calculations

Privacy note: All app data was grouped at country level. No personally identifiable information (PII) was collected or analysed.