Full repairs to three submarine internet cables damaged in the Red Sea in February are being held up by disputes over who controls access to infrastructure in Yemeni waters.
The Yemeni government has granted permits for the repair of two out of three cables, but refused the third because of a dispute with one of the cable’s consortium members.
Repairs to the Seacom and EIG cables have been approved, but the consortium that runs AAE-1, which includes telecommunications company TeleYemen, was not granted a permit by Yemen’s internationally recognized government, according to documents.
Three out of more than a dozen cables that run through the Red Sea, a critical route for connecting Europe’s internet infrastructure to Asia’s, were knocked offline by the Houthi-sunk Rubymar vessel in late February. Although the data that passes along the damaged cables was rerouted, the incident highlighted the vulnerability of critical subsea infrastructure and the challenges of making repairs in a conflict zone.
The dispute over the third cable derives from the split political control of TeleYemen, the country’s sole telecoms provider, a reflection of the country’s broader geopolitical divisions. The company has two branches, one in Aden under control of the internationally recognised Yemeni government, and the other in Sanaa under the control of the Houthi militia group.
The Yemeni government refused to cooperate with the Houthi-linked part of TeleYemen associated with the AAE-1 cable consortium and sought to appoint a representative from the Aden branch, according to the documents. But the consortium didn’t approve the alternative representative and Yemen’s government declined to grant a permit, according to the documents.
TeleYemen
E-Marine, a subsidiary of Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Telecommunications Group, is contracted to carry out the repairs.
The Aden branch of TeleYemen, affiliated with the Yemeni government, wrote a letter to Yemen’s telecoms ministry demanding that E-Marine provide a £10-million (R232-million) bank guarantee to ensure it would not carry out any repairs on the AAE-1 cable when the company was fixing the other two cables until the dispute was resolved. The ministry initially approved the condition, according to the documents, but Yemen’s cabinet decided it wasn’t necessary, a senior government official said.
E-Marine did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Houthi telecoms ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read: Houthi-sunk ship likely snapped Red Sea internet cables
It’s unclear if the Houthis, an Iran-backed militia group which controls much of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline, including the key port of Hodeida, will let E-Marine fix the two cables. The group, which has been attacking ships in the area with drones and missiles for months, has previously said only it can grant permission for the repairs.
The repair ships will take about a week to reach the cables and then approximately two days to fix each one, according to Seacom’s Prenesh Padayachee. The cables will be lifted to the surface and fresh cable will be spliced in to replace the damaged sections.
The repair crew will also assess the Rubymar, the Houthi-sunk ship whose anchor most likely severed the cables in February. Seacom estimates that the ship is currently about 1km away from its cable, Padayachee said, and seems to be stable.
“But we don’t want to do a repair and then have this vessel falling into the new cables,” he said. “In all likelihood it will have to be moved.”
The three damaged cables carry about 25% of traffic in the region, according to estimates from Hong Kong-based internet provider HGC Global Communications, which uses the cables. — Mohammed Hatem and Olivia Solon, with Paul Wallace, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP
Read next: New subsea cable planned to link Africa, Asia
