Submarine cables used for international communications and internet network were cut in the Red Sea, announced Microsoft late on Saturday, causing disruption of Internet traffic in Asia and the Middle East according to an organization of internet access.
Microsoft announced in a press release from its Azure IT platform that the Middle East “could experience increased latency due to underwater cable cuts in the Red Sea”.
The American firm did not give any immediate details on the causes of the incident. However, she said that internet traffic does not take the Middle East region “is not affected”.
The Internet access monitoring organization sitting in London Netblocks, for its part noted that a “series of submarine cables in the Red Sea has degraded Internet connectivity in several countries, citing in particular India, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates.
She attributed these disturbances to “failures affecting SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Djeddah, Saudi Arabia”.
A real spine of global communications, underwater telecommunications cables route 99% of international data exchanges.
According to the International Cable Protection Committee (CIPC), the main organization of the sector, there are an average of 150 to 200 breakdowns per year around the world.
If the majority are cut by ship anchors, they can also be the target of attacks.
This failure occurs while the Houthis rebels of Yemen, supported by Iran regularly launch attacks against ships in the Gulf of Aden and in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians of Gaza, besieged and subjected to a large -scale Israeli military offensive, consecutive to the attack on October 7, 2023 of the Palestinian Hamas movement Israeli.
In 2024, the Yemeni rebels had denied having targeted the underwater cables in the Red Sea.
About 1.4 million kilometers of fiber optic cables cross the oceans, allowing the supply of data all over the world for essential services such as trade, financial transactions, public services, digital health and education.
