Somaliland: Coast Guards Avert Djibouti Vessel Laying Submarine Cable in its Waters

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HARGEISA–Somaliland’s coastal guards have chased away a ship laying submarine fiber optic cable from Somaliland’s territorial waters in the Gulf of Berbera.

This comes days after the East Africa’s largest submarine cable landed in Djibouti on its way to Bosaso and Mogadishu in Somalia and later on to Kenya’s coastal town of Mombasa.

According to state run newspaper, Dawan, the SL’s coast guards have prevented the ship from laying submarine cable in the nation’s waters.

Last night the ship had violated Somaliland’s territorial waters on several occasions to be rebuffed by the coast guards.

At one point according to SL’s coast guards, the vessel fired warning shots over their heads.

However, SL coast guards persisted in their chase and finally succeeded around mid night Saturday.

The vessel way carrying the 5400 km cable system dubbed the Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 which will link Djibouti, Mogadishu, Mombasa and Bosaso.

It will deliver a capacity of up to 32 terabytes per second.

Somaliland’s minister of communication and technology has made clear that the cable from Djibouti will not make a landing in Berbera.

The minister, Abdiweli Abdilahi Jibril, said a 25 year monopoly agreement between Somaliland government and a private telecommunication company compels the largest East Africa Telecommunication submarine cable to skip Somaliland.

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