THE United States embassy in Tanzania has announced a temporary closure for two days in response to an internet outage impacting several East African countries.
In a statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, the embassy cited ‘degraded network service nationwide’ as the reason for the closure. Consular services will be affected during this period, with scheduled appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday cancelled and rescheduled for a later date.
‘Tanzania was worst hit in the region by poor internet connectivity as a result of faults in the under-sea cables that occurred on Sunday,’ the embassy noted.
Despite the closure to the public, the consular section will remain open for scheduled visa pickups and emergency cases involving American citizens.
Located in the coastal city of Dar es Salaam, the US embassy in Tanzania is one of the largest diplomatic missions in the country.
The internet outage has also impacted other countries in the East Africa region, including Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda. Meanwhile, Mozambique and Malawi experienced a medium impact.
This disruption in internet connectivity mirrors a similar incident in West and Central Africa last month, which was attributed to undersea cable failures. The outage underscores the vulnerability of regional internet infrastructure and its impact on diplomatic operations and consular services.
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