Bloomberg: Repairing damaged submarine internet cables in the Red Sea amid Houthi attacks on ships

Repairs of three undersea communications cables damaged in the Red Sea finally began in February, even as Houthi militants escalated their attacks on ships in the region.

Bloomberg said that the AAE-1 cable, a 25,000 km (15,500 miles) fiber optic link between Asia and Europe, was repaired by a ship owned by E-Marine, a subsidiary of the Emirates Telecommunications Group, headquartered in Abu Dhabi.

The agency quoted a Yemeni government official as saying, "The cable was connected to the Internet this week. The same ship, the Niwa, is still in Yemeni waters to repair the two remaining cables, Sicom and AIG."

According to the agency, the cables, among more than ten cables passing through the Red Sea, were cut due to the anchor of a cargo ship that was sunk by Iran-backed Houthi militants in late February.

Cable repairs depended on access to infrastructure in Yemeni waters, a task complicated by the country's divided government and the fact that the Red Sea is a conflict zone. It took months of negotiations involving the cable operators and the two factions that control Yemen - the internationally recognized government in the south and the Houthi-backed government in Sanaa - to arrange the repair mission.

“These are some of the biggest data superhighways connecting Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia,” said Roderick Beck, a consultant who supplies network capacity with submarine cables to telecom clients. “The outage has forced transport companies to completely reroute traffic by building new digital highways put together using new cables at great cost and working around the clock,” he noted.

Although communications data passing through the damaged cables were rerouted, the incident highlighted the vulnerability of critical undersea infrastructure and the challenges facing making repairs in the Red Sea, one of the world's most important shipping lanes and a conflict zone since late 2023.

Bloomberg News reported in June that Houthi militants, a group that claims to support Hamas, have recently intensified their attacks on ships in the region, including using a drone boat filled with explosives to sink a coal ship.

The consortium operating the AAE-1 cable, which includes Emirates Telecommunications Group, Telecom Egypt, and Saudi Mobily, initially faced difficulties in obtaining a permit from the internationally recognized Yemeni government due to a dispute over one of the consortium members, TeleYemen. The government approved permits for the other two cables in May, but refused to allow repair of the AAE-1 cable and began a criminal investigation into TeleYemen's alleged ties to the Houthi militia.

It is not clear how the AAE-1 cable association was able to obtain a permit. The government representative declined to comment further. Representatives of the consortium did not respond to requests for comment. Representatives for Seacom and EIG cables did not respond to requests for comment.

The Houthis have been attacking commercial and military ships in the southern Red Sea since mid-November. The strikes have forced many cargo ships to sail around South Africa rather than through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal, driving up shipping rates and raising concerns about the security of underwater cables that help transmit data across the world.