Vital PEACE Cable damage in the Red Sea puts East Africa’s connectivity on hold, with repairs expected to drag into mid-April 2025.
The recent disruption of internet services across Somaliland and parts of East Africa, due to a break in the Pakistan & East Africa Connecting Europe (PEACE) Cable in the Red Sea, underscores the fragile nature of the region’s internet infrastructure. This key undersea fibre-optic cable, which connects East Africa with Europe and Asia, experienced a significant rupture, leading to slower internet speeds and compromised streaming quality throughout the affected areas.
In an immediate response to the outage, Somaliland’s telecommunications providers rerouted traffic to backup networks, which restored services to near-normal levels. The National Communications Authority (NCA) of Somaliland has announced that complete repairs to the damaged cable are not expected to be completed until mid-April 2025. During this period, the NCA has committed to working closely with internet service providers (ISPs) to monitor service quality and address any technical issues that arise.
This incident is part of a broader pattern of vulnerabilities in Africa’s internet infrastructure, highlighted by similar disruptions in the past due to undersea cable damage in both the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. These recurring issues emphasize the critical need for enhanced redundancy measures to safeguard connectivity in the region.
The NCA has called on telecom operators to maintain transparent communication with regulators and to implement swift mitigation plans to minimize further service degradation. This proactive approach is essential in preventing future disruptions and in strengthening the resilience of internet infrastructure in Africa, ensuring reliable connectivity for its rapidly growing online population.
