Cable cuts in Red Sea disrupt internet across Asia and Middle East

Internet connectivity across South Asia and the Middle East has been disrupted following multiple subsea cable outages in the Red Sea, according to NetBlocks, an internet monitoring group.

Similar disruptions were reported on the Etisalat and Du networks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

In a statement, Netblocks said, "A series of subsea cable outages in the Red Sea has degraded internet connectivity in multiple countries including Pakistan and India; the incident is attributed to failures affecting the SMW4 and IMEWE cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia."

Microsoft also confirmed that users of its Azure cloud platform may face slower connections due to the outages. The company said it had rerouted traffic along alternative paths to maintain services but warned that latency would increase for data routed through the Middle East due to undersea fibre cuts in the Red Sea.