Somali internet users have been cut adrift from the world after a cargo ship accidentally cut an undersea cable, with costly results.
The fragility of the internet can be best summed up by news that Somalis lost their access when a commercial ship accidentally cut an undersea cable off the coast of the east African country.
The incident reportedly took place on 23 June, and the government has been unable to repair it since.
The capital of Mogadishu has been hit hardest by the nationwide outage, where much of the country’s business, governance and media are based.
According to Africa News, reporting five days after the incident, Omani engineers were offering assistance to repair the cable, which supports almost all of Somalia’s internet service providers.
With the cable remaining unfixed, the toll on the country is now making Somalia’s government more than a little anxious.
According to the BBC, Somalia’s posts and telecommunications minister, Abdi Anshur Hassan, has described the outage as nothing short of a “major disaster”, costing the country close to $10m each day.