Internet services were severely impacted in East Africa today because two submarine internet cables that connect South Africa and Kenya are down.

Ben Roberts, the group chief technology and information officer at Liquid Intelligent Technologies, posted on X (formerly Twitter) today that internet to East Africa is severely impaired.

“All sub-sea capacity between East Africa and South Africa is down,” he said.

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

⚠ 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

According to an article published by TechCentral today, South African internet users don’t appear to have been impacted. “Much of the country’s internet traffic flows through cable systems such as Equiano and Wacs [West Africa Cable System] 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,” the article stated.

Duncan McLeod, the founder and editor of TechCentral, said in an X post this afternoon that ‘Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Madagascar and Tanzania are impacted’. “This is the third major event affecting internet cables in Africa since February.”

People took to social media today, posting about the fault:

Under sea internet cable connecting EA was damaged and over 80M people are affected

— Steve Dete Mtetezi (@SteveDete_KE) May 12, 2024

Reports indicate an under sea internet cable connecting EA was damaged and over 80M people are affected

— Busulwa John Ivan (@realjohnivan) May 12, 2024