Yemen Suffers Nationwide Internet Outage After Saudi-Led Airstrikes Target Hodeida City: Report

The Houthi's Al-Masirah satellite news channel said the strike on the telecommunications building had killed and wounded several people.

Sana’a: Yemen on Friday lost Internet connection in the whole country after Saudi-led airstrikes targeted a site in the contested city of Hodeida, an advocacy group told news agency AP. “Yemen was in the midst of a nation-scale Internet blackout following airstrike on telecom building,” NetBlocks said, without immediately elaborating.

Giving details, NetBlocks said the disruption began around 1 AM local and affected TeleYemen, the state-owned firm that controls Internet access in the country.  Notably, TeleYemen is now being run by the Houthi rebels who have held Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since late 2014.

Moreover, the San Diego-based Center for Applied Internet Data Analysis and San Francisco-based internet firm CloudFlare also noted a nationwide outage affecting Yemen beginning around the same time.

On the other hand, the Houthi’s Al-Masirah satellite news channel said the strike on the telecommunications building had killed and wounded several people. It released chaotic footage of people digging through rubble for a body as gunshots could be heard. Aid workers assisted the survivors.

The Saudi-led coalition battling the Houthi rebels acknowledged carrying out “accurate airstrikes to destroy the capabilities of the militia” around Hodeida’s port. However, it did not immediately acknowledge striking a telecommunication target as NetBlocks described, but instead called Hodeida a hub for piracy and Iranian arms smuggling to back the Houthis.

(With inputs from AP)