An ongoing internet outage in Somalia is costing the country $10m (£7.7m) each day, and sparking anger across the affected central and southern parts of the country, including the capital, Mogadishu. The outage is reported to have been caused by a commercial ship cutting an undersea fibre-optic cable more than two weeks ago, and is expected to go on for at least another week.

The post and telecommunications minister – Abdi Anshur Hassan – told a press conference that Somalia has lost more than $130 million so far.

Internet service providers have since resorted to using satellite communications to provide access the internet, however this remedy was described as weak and unable to cope with the huge demand.

Internet outages are a major concern for organizations across the world with the Business Continuity Institute’s latest Horizon Scan Report featuring it in third place on its list of threats. 80% of respondents to a global survey expressing concern about the prospect of an outage occurring. In Sub-Saharan Africa it was in second place on both the list of concerns and the list of actual disruptions.

After more than 20 years of conflict, internet usage is low in Somalia, with just 1.6% of the population online in 2014, according to estimates by the International Telecommunication Union.