Last week, West and Central Africa experienced a major internet outage, depriving people in many countries of access to the internet, social media, and tools for making bank transfers and international calls.
Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Benin, Ghana, Togo, and Burkina Faso were the most affected countries.
The outage was less severe in other countries such as Cameroon, Gabon, Namibia, and Rwanda. South Africa, which was also affected, was able to restore connectivity quickly.
This Internet outage was caused by a break in four of the five submarine cables that provide these countries with Internet access.
According to analyses by the companies concerned, it is likely that the cable breakage was caused by "some form of seismic activity on the seabed… Given the distance from land and the depth of the cable at the breakage point (approximately 3 km), any form of human activity (ship anchors, fishing, drilling, etc.) was immediately ruled out."
In Côte d'Ivoire, the country's two largest operators, Orange and MTN, were affected, disrupting daily life, particularly in the economic and banking sectors. MOOV, the third mobile operator, continued to operate normally.
The outage that began on Thursday morning was restored on Saturday.