🔗 Share this article

Mali has suspended schools and higher learning institutions across the nation due to a severe fuel scarcity resulting from a blockade on fuel imports imposed by militant groups.

The Education Minister stated on state television that all learning centers would stay shut until 9 November, clarifying that the movement of personnel and pupils had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

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

For several weeks, the nation has been experiencing a petrol crisis, particularly in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a blockade by attacking tankers on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all petroleum products are brought in by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around petrol stations in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had in recent days assured citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has persisted.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in the capital declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would evacuate the country amid the worsening petrol scarcity and growing security concerns.

It said that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a military junta led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in recently.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it assumed control, vowing to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been deployed in previously to combat the increasing militant activity.

Both have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the current administration has hired Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.