US embassy in Tanzania closed over internet outage

The US Embassy in Tanzania has closed for two days due to an internet outage affecting several East African countries.

"Due to degraded network service nationwide, the embassy will remain closed to the public," the embassy said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.

It cancelled all consular appointments for Tuesday and Wednesday and rescheduled them to a later date.

The embassy will, however, remain accessible for visa collections and for handling emergency cases involving American citizens.

The internet outage has persisted since Sunday morning, causing poor connectivity in Tanzania, Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda.

Metrics shared by internet monitoring group NetBlocks on Monday showed that Tanzania has been worst hit by the outage.

The patchy service is a result of faults in the under-sea cables that connect the region to the rest of the world through South Africa, industry expert Ben Roberts told the BBC.

On Monday, some East Africans were still experiencing slow internet speeds with some telecom providers indicating that the issue was yet to be fully resolved.