Somalia: Internet services restored July 17 /update 1

Event

Internet services were restored in Somalia on Monday, July 17, after repairs were made to a severed undersea cable. The outage cost the country approximately USD 10 million per day and forced a number of businesses to close. The government of Somalia has issued an apology to citizens over the outage, which impacted all landline and mobile users without access to private satellite connections.

Context

Internet access was cut on June 23 in the south of the country, including in the capital city of Mogadishu. Government officials believe that a commercial ship accidentally cut the undersea fiber optic cable that provides internet services to the country off the coast in the Indian Ocean.