"We have been a victim of sabotage. A fiber optic submarine cable was sabotaged and we are making repairs in many places, "said a Moroccan technician.

"We do not know who did it," he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

All day Sunday, several technicians were at work on the sea front boulevard to repair the faulty cable. Some pulling the cable, others were in the underground canal that carries several types of cables supplying the capital telephone, electricity and other services.

Meanwhile, in Libreville neighborhoods and virtually the entire country, the depression that began Thursday night continued. The outlets of Edan units (prepaid electricity) were besieged by customers trapped by the Internet outage. Same for Canalsat subscribers (cable TV) who could not renew their subscriptions via their mobile phone.

Money transfer services were paralyzed, cybercafes could not provide internet to their customers, several online news sites could not be updated. In short, the digital economy was on the ground.

No official announcement has been released to reassure consumers. For over a month, the staff of Gabon Telecom has been observing a strike for various reasons related to the privatization of their company in 2007. No one knows if the strikers are behind the sabotage.

Gabon Telecom is to date the largest internet provider in Gabon. It operates since 2003, the fiber optic cable Sat 3. The country has secured a new submarine cable: Cable ACE deemed to be more powerful, but it has hardly been used and commercialized since landing on the coast Gabon in January 2012.

Khephren FANGA