🔗 Share this article

Mali has suspended schools and universities across the nation due to a severe petrol shortage resulting from a blockade on energy resources implemented by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister announced on public media that all learning centers would stay shut until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of staff and students had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to resolve the emergency so that educational activities could resume on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, notably in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a embargo by targeting transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are transported by truck from neighboring states such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been winding around gas pumps in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently become deserted.

The ruling military council had previously promised residents that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has persisted.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would depart the country amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing security concerns.

It said that the fuel disruptions had affected the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is now led by a army council under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in recently.

The military government had widespread approval when it assumed control, committing to tackle the ongoing instability prompted by a autonomy movement in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been stationed in previously to combat the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have departed since the military assumed power, and the military government has contracted private military contractors to combat the insecurity.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has persisted and extensive regions of the north and east of the nation remain beyond state authority.