During this first week of March 2024, internet services in Pakistan and India, as well as some areas of East Africa, were destabilized. Some sources indicate that parts of Europe were also affected.
The reason for this unsettling development was that some fiber optic cables within the depths of the Red Sea were damaged by a ship’s anchor. The vessel in question was an Israeli cargo ship called “The Rubymar”, which Houthi militant forces are said to have attacked early in the week.
Houthi forces are religious Shia extremists, and their movement, which originated in Yemen during the ‘90s, is not only political but violent.
The Vulnerability of the World Has Been Exposed
The recent internet interference has brought to the fore the vulnerability of the world with regard to internet connectivity. Considering that the anchor from the Israeli vessel interfered with only four cables, the future risk remains much greater should there be physical interference of a bigger magnitude.
There are around 380 fiber optic cables inter-connecting the world from under the depths of the sea, and they cover a distance of 1.2 million kilometers. The cables within the Red Sea constitute 17% of all the global internet cables.
Some of those cables, which are wrapped in bundles, are laid in fairly shallow waters, and they could easily be damaged by sunken vessels, other heavy objects, or dragging anchors. In case of massive damage to the cables within the Red Sea, internet disruption could extend to larger areas of Europe, the eastern parts of Asia, and the northern part of Africa.