A significant outage affecting services hosted on Amazon Web Services in the Middle East has disrupted internet connectivity and cloud-based platforms in the region, according to reports. AWS confirmed that multiple services in its UAE region experienced disruptions on Sunday, 1 March, with customers reporting elevated error rates and degraded cloud functionality.
The disruption is linked to power and connectivity issues at AWS data centres in the UAE and Bahrain, where at least one availability zone was hit by unidentified objects that caused sparks and a fire, prompting emergency services to cut power to parts of the facility. AWS said it was working to restore services and advised customers to use alternate regions or availability zones while recovery continues.
The outage affected a range of AWS services, with users in the UAE and neighbouring markets reporting difficulties accessing applications and cloud-dependent platforms. Some organisations, including financial institutions, experienced technical issues that industry observers believe were tied to the outage.
While AWS has not confirmed any direct cause beyond its service status updates, the incident comes amid heightened regional tensions, and the impact underscores the vulnerability of digital infrastructure to physical disruptions.
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