🔗 Share this article

The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and colleges throughout the country due to a acute fuel scarcity caused by a restriction on energy resources enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official announced on public media that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, noting that the travel of personnel and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He emphasized that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could resume on November 10th.

For weeks, Mali has been facing a petrol crisis, especially in the capital Bamako, after armed groups from an jihadist network enforced a blockade by targeting transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are transported by road from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been snaking around fuel outlets in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The junta-led administration had in recent days reassured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has persisted.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would leave the country amid the worsening petrol scarcity and growing safety issues.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the supply of electricity and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unpredictable ways.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a military overthrow in recently.

The ruling council had public backing when it came to authority, committing to deal with the ongoing instability caused by a independence uprising in the northern region by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been stationed in previously to address the increasing militant activity.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the current administration has contracted foreign fighters to tackle the instability.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the state remain beyond state authority.