Internet disruption hits West and Central Africa, Netblocks and Cloudflare data shows

A major internet outage struck West and Central Africa on Thursday, as reported by the internet observatory Netblocks, which cited information from operators indicating multiple subsea cable failures. The precise cause of these failures remains unclear at this time.

According to Netblocks data, Ivory Coast faced a severe outage, while Liberia, Benin, Ghana, and Burkina Faso experienced significant impacts. Cloudflare, an internet firm, confirmed ongoing major disruptions in Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, and Niger through one of its monitoring accounts.

Cloudflare Radar noted a discernible pattern in the timing of these disruptions, affecting regions from the north to the south of Africa.

South African telecoms operator Vodacom also attributed connectivity issues to undersea cable failures impacting the country’s network providers.