As many as four submarine communications cables have been damaged in the Red Sea between Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Djibouti in East Africa, according to a report in respected Israeli news outlet Globes,
Globes said that it had received reports that the cables are from the companies AAE-1, Seacom, EIG and TGN. “This is causing serious disruption of Internet communications between Europe and Asia, with the main damage being felt in the Gulf countries and India”, Globes said.
The degree of damage to communications was described as “significant but not critical” because other cables that have not been hit also pass through the same region, linking Asia, Africa and Europe. It was estimated that it would take at least eight weeks to repair the large number of underwater cables that have been hit. There will also be a matter of cost, risk and insurance. The telecommunications companies seeking companies to carry out the repairs could face difficulties finding cable ship owners that are willing to take the risk, or to put their staff “in the line of fire”, as well as finding an insurer willing to provide cover.
Seacom warned that repairs could be delayed due to “instability in the area,” saying no more than that its team was working on a timeline for service restoration.
EIG (European India Gateway) connects Southern Europe with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti, the UAE and India. The underwater cable was laid by Tyco arm Alcatel-Lucent at a cost of $700m and was the first cable stretching from the UK to India.
TGN Atlantic was laid by Tyco International in 2001 and sold to Indian company Tata Communications in 2005 for $130m.
The affected AAE-1 cable links East Asia to Europe via Egypt and has a capacity of 40 terabytes a second. It links China with the west via countries belonging to the Chinese-Iranian axis – including those countries and Pakistan and Qatar.
The Seacom cable links Europe, Africa and India as well as South Africa.
Senior executives at international communications and underwater cable companies have posted reports about the damage on LinkedIn and X. Damage to one of the lines has been confirmed, while further confirmation was still awaited for the other three. Seacom confirmed that its cable between Egypt and Kenya was severed on February 24th, although the firm said that it was too early to know if this was a deliberate attack
There are16 small fibre-optic lines under the Red Sea handle, and they handle about 17% of all international data traffic. That includes trunk lines connecting Europe with India and East Asia.
A Houthi social media account posted a map of these cables earlier this year, while the Saudi-backed official Yemen government has warned of the potential Houthi threat to undersea cables, some of which are at a depth of only 300ft and would therefore be accessible to properly equipped divers.
https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-houthis-hit-underwater-communications-cables-1001472165
