Kenya was hit by internet disruptions as anti-Finance Bill protests were held across the country, despite the communications regulator earlier dispelling fears of a possible disruption.

Global internet governance and cybersecurity tracking organisation NetBlocks on Tuesday confirmed they had detected “a major network disruption” in Kenya just moments after protesters stormed parliament. “Live network data show a major disruption to internet connectivity in Kenya; the incident comes amidst a deadly crackdown by police on #RejectFinanceBill2024 protesters a day after authorities claimed there would be no internet shutdown,” Netblocks said Tuesday. This came after several Kenyans took to social media to complain about slowing internet speed even as some social media platforms like X (formerly Twitter) remained inaccessible for some hours on Tuesday afternoon.

Kenya’s largest network operator Safaricom, in which the State has a 35 percent stake, blamed the internet slowdown on an outage of two undersea cables. “We have activated redundancy measures to minimise service interruption and keep you connected as we await full restoration of the cables,” the telco said in a statement Tuesday.

The internet disruption comes despite the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) dispelling such fears a day earlier after several civil society groups raised concerns over possible interference due to the protests.