Major internet outages in at least 10 West African countries

A dozen countries across Africa suffered a major internet outage on Thursday following the failure of several underwater telecommunications cables, according to operators and internet watchdogs.

MTN Group, one of Africa's largest network providers, said the ongoing disruptions were due to failures of several major submarine cables, adding that "operations" are underway to "redirect traffic via alternative network routes”.

The West Africa Cable System (WACS), Africa Coast to Europe (ACE), and MainOne are believed to be the main cables in the system that were affected by Thursday's outage.

Internet analytics firm Cloudflare reported that the outages occurred simultaneously and heavily affected at least 10 West African countries, including Ivory Coast, Liberia, Benin, Ghana and the Burkina Faso.

The majority of internet traffic passes around the world via submarine fiber optic cables, one of them, 15,000 km long, leaves Portugal to connect Cape Town in South Africa.