DAKAR: Problems with undersea data cables off the west coast of Africa have caused internet disruptions, some of them severe, in around a dozen West and Southern African countries, reported German news agency (dpa).
The connection services in the West African countries were impaired due to interruptions in several important undersea cables, the company Bayobab, the infrastructure subsidiary of the South African network operator MTN, said on Thursday. Bayobab did not provide any information on the cause of the damage.
The internet was largely unavailable on Thursday in Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana and Burkina Faso in West Africa, according to data from the NetBlocks organization, which monitors internet blockages.
There were moderate and slight restrictions in eight other countries - including Nigeria and South Africa. Thousands of users there were also without internet, the South African specialised portal MyBroadband reported.
Following outages of its online services, the internet company informed Microsoft customers that the WACS, MainOne, SAT3 and ACE fibre optic cables off the west coast of Africa were affected. The undersea cables run from Europe through the Atlantic southwards into the Gulf of Guinea and onwards to South Africa.
Together with the failures of the undersea cables in the Red Sea off the east coast of Africa, the overall capacities for the continent are currently impaired, Microsoft added.
Data cables were recently severed in the Red Sea. Most of the connections between Europe and Asia run through the area near the Horn of Africa, where the Yemeni Houthi militia is attacking Western merchant ships. It is suspected that the anchor of the ship Rubymar, which sank after a Houthi rebel attack, may have severed the cables. -Bernama
