Widespread internet disruptions hit the Middle East and South Asia over the weekend after undersea cables in the Red Sea were damaged, with UAE users among those affected. Customers of Etisalat and Du reported slow speeds and patchy connectivity on Friday and Saturday, though by Sunday most services had improved, according to users.
The exact cause of the cuts has not been confirmed. Undersea fiber-optic cables are the backbone of global internet traffic, and while they are sometimes damaged accidentally—such as by ships dropping anchors—they have also been targets of deliberate attacks. The uncertainty has raised concerns in the region about the resilience and security of critical infrastructure.
Internet monitoring group NetBlocks identified failures in the SMW4 (South East Asia–Middle East–Western Europe 4) and IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe) cable systems near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as the source of the disruption. Both routes are vital for data flows between Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
Microsoft issued an update acknowledging that users in the Middle East “may experience increased latency due to undersea fiber cuts in the Red Sea,” while clarifying that traffic outside the region was not impacted.
Even with redundancy built into most telecom networks, large-scale cuts can cause noticeable slowdowns. Repairs are particularly challenging: locating and fixing subsea cables requires specialized vessels and crews, and the process often stretches over several weeks.
Telecom operators have not yet commented publicly on the incident. For now, engineers appear to have rerouted enough traffic to restore partial service, but lingering issues remain for some customers.
