Parts of Africa were already seeing web disruptions from damaged Red Sea cables.

Thirteen countries across Africa experienced Internet outages on Thursday due to damage to submarine fiber optic cables. Some countries, including Ghana and Nigeria, are still suffering from nationwide outages.

Multiple network providers reported Internet outages yesterday, and Cloudflare’s Radar tool, which monitors Internet usage patterns, detailed how the outage seemingly moved from the northern part of West Africa to South Africa. All 13 countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, South Africa, The Gambia, and Togo) reportedly suffered nationwide outages, with most seeing multiple networks hit.

  • idiomaddict@feddit.de
    2·
    8 months ago

    A lot of those countries have had tension with their neighbors because they’ve been taken over by a series of military coups which are aligned with each other and gradually spreading. I’m sure other stuff is also going on (I’m also shamefully uninformed), but that jumps out as a possibility. Cutting communications is useful for a coup and preventing one, depending on timing, but you’re right that a mistake is more likely