🔗 Share this article

The landlocked West African country has closed schools and colleges throughout the country due to a severe fuel scarcity caused by a blockade on petroleum supplies imposed by militant groups.

Top education official announced on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until November 9th, noting that the transportation of employees and students had been disrupted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could continue on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been experiencing a fuel shortage, particularly in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a restriction by attacking transport vehicles on primary roads.

The country is landlocked, so all energy resources are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Extended lines have been winding around gas pumps in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly become deserted.

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

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital stated that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would leave Mali amid the intensifying energy crisis and escalating safety issues.

It said that the energy interruptions had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a armed forces administration under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in 2021.

The ruling council had popular support when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the long-running security crisis prompted by a independence uprising in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been deployed in a decade ago to combat the growing rebellion.

The international troops have left since the military assumed power, and the ruling council has contracted foreign fighters to address the insecurity.

However, the jihadist insurgency has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain not under administrative command.