Industry specialists believe a commercial vessel’s anchor dragged across the seabed in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, damaging at least four major systems: South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4 (SMW4), India–Middle East–Western Europe (IMEWE), FALCON GCX and the Europe India Gateway.
The disruption has led to degraded internet performance across India, Pakistan, the Gulf states and parts of Africa, with operators confirming slower speeds and higher latency.
Microsoft said its Azure platform in the Middle East was affected, though traffic has since been rerouted via alternate paths. UAE operators Du and e& also reported service degradation as they worked to mitigate the impact.
The latest cuts come just over a year after cables in the same region were damaged in February 2024, an event that left carriers and hyperscalers scrambling to re-establish capacity. That incident prompted a review of restoration practices and resilience planning across the subsea industry, as Capacity Media reported at the time.
Cable repairs are expected to take several days or weeks, depending on vessel availability and regional permits. In the meantime, rerouting is keeping services online, though not at optimal levels.
“The Red Sea has become one of the most fragile bottlenecks in global connectivity,” Tony O’Sullivan, CEO of RETN, says.
“In February 2024, Red Sea cuts disrupted as much as 70% of Europe–Asia data flow, which was far beyond the initial estimates. Now, less than two years later, we’re seeing the same vulnerabilities play out again.
“The lesson is clear: resilience isn’t about pouring more bandwidth into the same path, it’s about building networks that are fundamentally harder to break.”
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