Somalia: Internet restored after 23 day blackout

After more than three weeks without the internet, residents in Somalia can now go online. Online access was restored on Monday following a blackout caused by a container ship which damaged an undersea cable connecting the Horn of Africa nation to the world. It is reported that the MSC Alice, which had brought goods to a port in the capital Mogadishu, was responsible for the fibre optic cable damage.

The 23-day blackout affected majority of the 6.5 million people living in Somalia’s south-central region including the capital, Mogadishu, cutting off access to everything from hotel booking sites to remittance platforms.

Abdi Anshur, Somalia’s minister for posts and telecommunications, told reporters that the internet link which went down on June 24 had been fixed.

The outage cost Somalia the equivalent of about $10 million in economic output per day according to the government.

Staff Writer