The Gambia’s internet service is being severely disrupted after the submarine cable, that links the country to the global internet system, breaks. 

On New Year’s Day the country was without internet access for over 14 hours sparking public outrage. 

“The Gambia Submarine Cable management wishes to inform all that the ACE cable link connecting the country to outside is down at the sea level and this is generally impacting on Internet Services,” the telecommunications authorities said in a press statement. 

“The GSC and ACE is jointly addressing the issue with the utmost urgency it requires. The restoration measures at the level of ACE are in progress. The management of The Gambia submarine cable apologises for the inconvenience caused.”

Lamin Jabbi, managing director of the GSC, said: “we have immediate measures which is to make sure we have a ship on the ground [and] that ship we have called them and they are arriving at the site on Monday to actually do the reconnection which is because it is a trouble area.”

“We are hoping the vessel will arrive in The Gambia on Monday and possibly in the course of next week – within three days or four days we will have the connection back,” he added.

According to him, the disruption doesn’t only affect the country but it has affected numbers of other countries that are also connected to the cable for internet services.

“The problem is not on our coastal part here. There is nothing wrong with our system,” Mr Jabbie said. 

The Gambia is among the countries in the world with poor internet connection as well as high cost for internet use. 

Reporting by Adama Makasuba