The West African nation Suspends Schools and Higher Education Centers as Jihadist Restrictions Intensifies Petrol Crisis
Mali has closed schools and higher learning institutions across the nation due to a critical petrol shortage caused by a blockade on energy resources enforced by Islamist insurgents.
Top education official declared on public media that all education institutions would be inactive until the ninth of November, noting that the transportation of employees and pupils had been affected by the restrictions.
He stated that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the emergency so that academic sessions could restart on the tenth of November.
For several weeks, the nation has been grappling with a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a blockade by attacking transport vehicles on key routes.
The country is landlocked, so all energy resources are delivered by land routes from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.
Lengthy waits have been snaking around gas pumps in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently fallen quiet.
The military government had earlier this month assured citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has endured.
Last week, the American diplomatic mission in the capital stated that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would leave Mali amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and increasing safety issues.
It explained that the fuel disruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.
Mali is now led by a military junta under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in two years ago.
The military government had popular support when it took power, promising to address the ongoing instability triggered by a independence uprising in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.
The international UN troops and French forces had been stationed in previously to deal with the growing rebellion.
These forces have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the ruling council has employed private military contractors to combat the insecurity.
Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has continued and significant areas of the north and east of the nation remain outside government control.