🔗 Share this article

The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions across the nation due to a severe fuel scarcity resulting from a embargo on energy resources enforced by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister announced on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until 9 November, clarifying that the transportation of personnel and learners had been impacted by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the government officials were “making every effort” to alleviate the emergency so that classes could restart on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, notably in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on major highways.

The country is landlocked, so all petroleum products are delivered by road from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been forming around petrol stations in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The ruling military council had in recent days assured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would leave the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and escalating protection worries.

It explained that the energy interruptions had impacted the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

Mali is currently ruled by a military junta led by General Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The military government had public backing when it assumed control, committing to deal with the ongoing instability triggered by a independence uprising in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been stationed in previously to deal with the growing rebellion.

Both have departed since the junta took over, and the military government has employed foreign fighters to combat the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain beyond state authority.