Houthis hit submarine communications cables

WORLD  27 February 2024 - 10:05

Three months after the Houthis began attacking merchant ships, the Yemenite rebels have carried out another one of their threats.

Four submarine communication cables have been damaged in the Red Sea between Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and Djibouti in East Africa, Globes has learned.

According to the reports, these are cables 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.

Estimates are that the damage to communications activities is significant but not critical because other cables pass through the same region linking Asia, Africa and Europe that have not been hit. The repair of such a large number of underwater cables may take at least eight weeks according to estimates and involve exposure to risk from the Houthi terror organization. The telecommunications companies will be forced to look for companies that will agree to carry out the repair work and probably pay them a high-risk premium.

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 $700 million and was the first cable stretching from the UK to India. Shares in EIG are held by a consortium including AT&T, Saudi Telecom, Verizon, and India's Bharat Sanchar.

TGN Atlantic was laid by Tyco International in 2001 and sold to Indian company Tata Communications in 2005 for $130 million. The AAE-1 cable which has also been cut links East Asia to Europe via Egypt. The cable, which has a 40 terabyte per second capacity, 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.

Caliber.Az