AWS Bahrain Cloud Disruption After Drone Activity

Sources

Public references used for this article.

• AWS Health Dashboard — AWS public status material reported conflict-related physical impacts to ME-SOUTH-1, degraded availability, and guidance for customers to recover or migrate workloads to other AWS regions. (source risk: low risk)
• Reuters via Investing.com — Reuters reported that Amazon attributed the Bahrain AWS disruption to drone activity in the area and had not disclosed whether the facility was directly hit or affected by nearby activity. (source risk: low risk)
• Al Jazeera — Al Jazeera, with Reuters, reported the March 24, 2026 disruption and noted it was the second time in a month AWS operations had been affected by the war. (source risk: low risk)
• AP News — AP reported that two AWS data centers in the UAE were directly struck and that another Bahrain facility was damaged after a drone landed nearby. (source risk: low risk)
• AWS announcement — AWS announced the Middle East Bahrain Region on July 29, 2019 as its first Middle East region and said it consisted of three Availability Zones. (source risk: low risk)
• AWS documentation — AWS documentation lists me-south-1 as Middle East Bahrain, with three Availability Zones, Bahrain geography and required opt-in status. (source risk: low risk)
• Data Center Dynamics — Data Center Dynamics reported that one ME-SOUTH-1 facility was impacted, multiple AWS services saw elevated errors or degraded availability, and Amazon recommended backups and migration to alternate regions. (source risk: low risk)
• Reuters via Sahm Capital — Reuters reported on April 30, 2026 that Amazon said AWS's Bahrain region had suffered damage due to the Middle East conflict and was currently unavailable. (source risk: low risk)
• Amazon News — Amazon said the AWS Bahrain Region was disrupted by the ongoing conflict and that affected customers were being supported, including migration to alternate AWS Regions. (source risk: low risk)
• AP News — AP reported that two AWS data centers in the United Arab Emirates were directly struck and that another facility in Bahrain was damaged after a drone landed nearby. (source risk: low risk)
• AWS — AWS announced the Middle East Bahrain Region on July 29, 2019 as the first AWS Region in the Middle East and said it consisted of three Availability Zones. (source risk: low risk)
• Data Center Dynamics — Data Center Dynamics reported one ME-SOUTH-1 facility was impacted and that customers saw elevated errors or degraded availability across multiple AWS services, with Amazon recommending backups and migration to alternate regions. (source risk: low risk)
• AWS Health Dashboard — AWS public status material reported that ME-SOUTH-1 had suffered conflict-related damage, was unavailable, and that customers should replicate Amazon S3 data and critical workloads to another AWS Region. (source risk: low risk)
• AP News — AP reported that two AWS data centers in the UAE were directly struck and a Bahrain facility was damaged after a drone landed nearby, highlighting physical-risk exposure for cloud infrastructure. (source risk: low risk)
• Developing Telecoms — Developing Telecoms reported on May 4, 2026 that AWS expected restoration of affected UAE and Bahrain cloud-region services to take several months and advised migration or recovery in other Regions. (source risk: low risk)