It was eight o’clock in the evening on February 18th when at the Gate of Tears, the name by which the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait is also known, two ballistic missiles were fired from an area of Yemen associated with the Huthis rebel group against Rubymar, a freight ship. Less than two hours later, the vessel shared its last location using the automatic navigation identification system, a type of GPS used by boats.
The Rubymar crew was rescued by nearby vessels after making a distress call. Six hours after the missile strike, all crew members were safe, reveals the magazine Wired.
Before abandoning ship, the crew released Rubymar’s anchor. But that wasn’t enough to stop this vessel from turning into a ghost boat. For two days, no one knew the whereabouts of the ship. It was necessary to use satellite images to understand where Rubymar was.
During this period, it was discovered that the ship remained in a relatively unchanged position. But then the currents changed. Furthermore, at that time an image of a small object was captured next to Rubymar. An expert consulted by the Wired suspects that it may have been a small vessel – and that the Rybymar’s anchor may have been moved. From then on, the boat began to drift.
Two days later, on February 24, the first internet blackout occurred. A Seacom submarine internet cable had been compromised. Five minutes later, another blackout. This time a cable from the company AAE-1. A third cable, dubbed EIG, also stopped working. All located at an estimated depth of 150 meters. Countries such as Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique have experienced internet access problems. But the effects were also felt in Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. It is estimated that millions of people were left without internet access due to problems with these three cables.
The evidence gathered by Wired point out that it was the anchor of this ghost ship that caused the damage to the three submarine cables located in the Bab-El-Mandeb Strait, while it was being pushed by currents and winds. Although initially there were suspicions that the rebel group Huthis could have directly sabotaged the submarine cables, reality suggests that it was a side effect of the alleged attack carried out by this armed group.
On March 2, two weeks after the attack, the Rubymar and its 171 meters in length, as well as dozens of containers of goods, sank off Yemen. Meanwhile, internet connections have been reestablished in the affected countries, thanks to internet traffic redirection systems, but the three cables destroyed by Rubymar remain inoperative.
