The West African nation Closes Schools and Universities as Jihadist Blockade Intensifies Petrol Shortage
Mali has closed educational facilities and universities countrywide due to a severe fuel scarcity triggered by a blockade on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.
The Education Minister announced on state television that all learning centers would be inactive until November 9th, explaining that the movement of employees and learners had been affected by the blockade.
He emphasized that the administration were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the situation so that classes could continue on the tenth of November.
For a number of weeks, the nation has been experiencing a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after militants from an jihadist network enforced a blockade by attacking transport vehicles on primary roads.
Mali is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are transported by road from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.
Extended lines have been winding around fuel outlets in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly grown silent.
The junta-led administration had in recent days reassured the public that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has endured.
In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart the country amid the worsening fuel shortage and growing protection worries.
It noted that the energy interruptions had affected the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.
The West African nation is currently ruled by a armed forces administration under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a coup in two years ago.
The junta had popular support when it came to authority, committing to tackle the long-running security crisis caused by a separatist rebellion in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.
The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been deployed in previously to combat the increasing militant activity.
The international troops have departed since the junta took over, and the military government has contracted Russian mercenaries to tackle the violence.
However, the militant uprising has endured and extensive regions of the north and east of the country remain not under administrative command.