Two submarine internet cables that connect South Africa and Kenya went on the blink on Sunday, severely impacting internet services in nations in East Africa.

The immediate cause of the faults, which are reportedly affecting the Eassy and Seacom cable systems that run along Africa’s east coast, could not be established. However, according to Wiocc, an investor in the Eassy cable system, Eassy has experienced a cut between South African and Mozambique.

Ben Roberts, group chief technology and information officer at Liquid Intelligent Technologies, posted on X at around 2pm SAST on Sunday that internet services in East Africa have been “severely impaired” by the problems with the two cables.

“All subsea capacity between East Africa and South Africa is down,” he posted. “Eassy cable – fault confirmed. Seacom cable – observing fault that occurred at same time.”

The fact that both systems went off at the same time seems to suggest some sort of undersea event like the one that severed four cables off Ivory Coast in West Africa in mid-March have caused the latest outage. The West Africa cables were recently repaired and returned to service after more than a month of being offline.

The problems in East Africa could not come at a worse time for the region given that three subsea cables in the Red Sea, which connect Africa and Southeast Asia to Europe, remain unrepaired after they were damaged in late February. Those cables – Seacom, EIG and AAE-1 – were reportedly severed after a ship, which was attacked by Houthi rebels from Yemen, dropped its anchor, tearing them up. The ship later sank.

Severe impact

The latest cable problems appear to be having a severe impact on internet users in Kenya and Tanzania, with social media reports suggesting there is a nearly total internet blackout in some areas. Rwanda, Uganda and Madagascar also appear to be impacted.

In Kenya, the outages have impacted users on major networks and internet service providers, including Safaricom and Telkom Kenya, according to social media posts. Mobile and fixed-broadband users alike have been impacted.

Its me again. Internet to East Africa is severely impaired. All sub sea capacity between East Africa and South Africa is down.
EASSy Cable – Fault confirmed
Seacom Cable – Observing Fault that occurred at same time.
3 cable cuts in Red Sea (Seacom, EIG, AAE1) remain unrepaired.

— Ben Roberts (@benliquidkenya) May 12, 2024

South African internet users don’t appear to have been impacted, as much of the country’s internet traffic flows through cable systems such as Equiano and Wacs along Africa’s west coast. Already, the traffic that had been flowing along the east coast had been rerouted to the west coast given the cable cuts in the Red Sea.

⚠ Confirmed: Network data show a disruption to internet connectivity in and around multiple East #Africa countries; the incident is attributed to failures affecting the SEACOM and EASSY subsea cable systems pic.twitter.com/8TsAvKrOe6

— NetBlocks (@netblocks) May 12, 2024

Chris Wood, CEO of Wiocc Group, an investor in the Eassy cable, told TechCentral via e-mail that Eassy had been severed somewhere between South Africa and Mozambique.

“A cable repair ship based in Cape Town has been mobilised and will sail on Tuesday morning. Transit to the site will take three days. The repair time will be dependent on weather, sea conditions and the extent of the damage.”

A spokeswoman for Seacom said the company’s core POPs (points of presence) in both Maputo and Dar es Salaam were unreachable due to a cable break.

Backbone links from Mombasa towards Dar es Salaam as well as from Mtunzini in KwaZulu-Natal to Maputo were also down, she said.

“Seacom technical teams are currently working with the vendors on restoring services to these regions. Traffic out of South Africa is currently being routed via alternative west coast cable systems.” – © 2024 NewsCentral Media