East Africa faced internet disruptions due to a major undersea fibre-optic cable cut on Sunday. This incident slowed down internet connections and led to widespread outages in the region, affecting South Africa as well. Safaricom and other network providers worked to restore services by activating backup systems, although users reported experiencing significantly reduced speeds.
Safaricom acknowledged the outage, which impacted one of the undersea cables responsible for internet traffic to and from the country. They assured customers that measures were being taken to minimize service interruptions and maintain connectivity while awaiting full restoration of the cable.
Liquid Intelligent Technologies’ Ben Roberts confirmed faults in the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and the Seacom cables, resulting in a complete break in sub-sea capacity between East Africa and South Africa. Additional unrepaired cuts in submarine cables in the Red Sea further compounded the outage. The incident affected major internet service providers in the region, such as Airtel and MTN, with users in several countries experiencing disruptions.
The vulnerability of East Africa’s internet infrastructure, heavily reliant on undersea cables, was underscored by this event. Roberts dismissed sabotage as a cause, attributing the situation to an unfortunate coincidence. While alternative cables connecting East Africa to Europe could gradually restore service through data rerouting, the loss of the crucial EASSy link to South Africa’s data centres would have a significant impact.
This outage marked the second major internet disruption in Africa in recent months, emphasizing the reliance on submarine cables for intercontinental data traffic. Repair efforts are ongoing to fix the damaged cables and fully reinstate internet connectivity in the region.
