Comms blackout across Sudan as rains damage essential fiber optic cable hub

Cable outages attributed to heavy rains and flash floods in the Haiya area of Sudan’s Red Sea state, have continued across much of the country for the second day in a row. Communications services were also interrupted in Omdurman and River Nile state, before intermittent service was restored yesterday evening.

Networks are still down in parts of Kassala, New Halfa, El Gedaref, El Obeid, En Nehoud, and areas across Red Sea state, in addition to large parts of Sennar, White Nile, and El Gezira states, for the second day in a row due to the disruption of fiber optic cables in the Haiya area in Red Sea state, a hub and junction where the railways and the roads which come from Atbara and Kassala meet and continue towards Suakin and Port Sudan.

Engineers who spoke to Radio Dabanga attributed the cable outage to floods and heavy rains that swept through large parts of the Red Sea state. Communications services were also interrupted in Omdurman and River Nile state, before intermittent service was restored on Saturday evening.

They pointed out the difficulties in maintenance operations due to floods and heavy rains in Haya and between Suakin and Port Sudan.

Large parts of the areas controlled by the Rapid Support Forces in Khartoum, Bahri, El Gezira, White Nile, Sennar, and large parts of Kordofan and Darfur have been witnessing a disruption of communications and internet networks for months, as the public rely on the satellite communications network Starlink.

Consumers complain about the high costs of using Starlink, in addition to its being shut down sometimes by the authorities for security and military reasons.

As previously reported by Radio Dabanga, the private telecommunications networks Sudani and Zain, moved their network centres from Khartoum to Port Sudan after the network centres in Khartoum were shut down. At that time, the telecommunications companies accused the RSF of shutting down the network throughout the country and linking its restoration to the return of the network to Darfur and Kordofan.