Massive internet outages reported across Africa

By Hassan Isilow

JOHANNESBURG (AA) – Massive internet disruptions were reported across Africa on Thursday, affecting businesses and communication, local media and the internet observatory Netblocks reported.

Netblocks said in a post on X that live network data showed Thursday’s telecom disruptions in Africa had intensified.

The incident has a high impact on West Africa with significant reductions in connectivity across the continent, it said.

According to My Broadband, an ICT website in South Africa, the outage started at around 12:30 p.m. (1030GMT) Thursday with some users reporting that they were not accessing the internet or were unable to use some online services, including LinkedIn, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp, X, and Xbox.

“MyBroadband has learned that multiple outages on undersea cables near Abidjan in Cote d’Ivoire are causing downtime. The West Africa Cable System (WACS), the Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), MainOne, and SAT3 cables are affected,” it said in a report.

Netblocks said Ivory Coast was severely affected, while Liberia, Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso faced high disruption incidents. South Africa, Lesotho, and Nigeria had low interruptions with Cameroon, Gabon, and Namibia having medium interruptions.

A spokesperson for Vodacom, one of the largest telecom firms in South Africa, said multiple subsea cable failures between South Africa and Europe were impacting network providers, including Vodacom, according to a report by local site News24.

“This means that certain customers are currently experiencing intermittent connectivity issues,” the spokesperson said.