🔗 Share this article

Mali has suspended schools and universities throughout the country due to a acute fuel scarcity resulting from a embargo on fuel imports implemented by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education declared on state television that all academic facilities would remain closed until the ninth of November, noting that the transportation of employees and learners had been impacted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could resume on the tenth of November.

For weeks, the nation has been facing a energy deficit, notably in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a restriction by targeting fuel trucks on primary roads.

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

Extended lines have been winding around fuel outlets in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The ruling military council had earlier this month promised residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has endured.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would leave the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and increasing security concerns.

It noted that the energy interruptions had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration headed by General Goïta, who assumed authority in a coup in 2021.

The ruling council had popular support when it assumed control, vowing to tackle the protracted safety emergency caused by a independence uprising in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and French forces had been sent in 2013 to deal with the escalating insurgency.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the military government has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the insecurity.

However, the Islamist rebellion has endured and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain beyond state authority.