Red Sea Cable Cuts Disrupt Internet Across Asia and Middle East
Internet services across Asia and the Middle East were disrupted after multiple subsea cable cuts in the Red Sea, according to monitoring group NetBlocks. Connectivity issues have hit users in India, Pakistan, and the UAE, with outages observed on the networks of Etisalat and Du.
The cause of the damage remains unclear, though failures were identified near Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, a key junction for undersea fiber routes linking Asia, Africa, and Europe.
Microsoft confirmed that its Azure cloud services were affected by the outages, warning users of increased latency. While traffic has been rerouted via alternative paths to prevent full service interruptions, Microsoft said some customers may still experience delays on routes previously running through the Middle East.
Azure is the world’s second-largest cloud provider after Amazon Web Services (AWS), making such disruptions significant for global enterprises. Experts note that the incident underscores the fragility of subsea cable infrastructure, which carries more than 95% of international internet traffic and is increasingly exposed to both accidents and geopolitical tensions.