Addis Abeba — Ethio Telecom says the service disruption its customers experienced in Semera, the capital city of Afar regional state, on Sunday, 11 December was due to telecom lines installation works being carried out in the area by Safaricom Ethiopia.

The state owned telecom giant said in a statement that the company's international telecom line that is passing through Djibouti, as well as its service lines in the Afar region were severely damaged at multiple places, resulting in service blackout from 6:32am in the morning to 7:32pm in the evening on Sunday.

Extensive maintenance works have been carried out and services have been restored since, Ethio telecom said. However, it threatens that "for the inconvenience happened to our customers, for the service interruptions and the loss of our company, we will be making legally accountable those who committed the act without prior notice".

The two companies have agreed in the past to share towers and other telecom assets in Ethiopia. Safaricom Ethiopia also signed a 5 years lease agreement to share optical fiber infrastructure in the country with Ethiopian Electric Power. AS