🔗 Share this article

Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a severe petrol shortage caused by a blockade on fuel imports implemented by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister stated on public media that all learning centers would remain closed until November 9th, explaining that the movement of employees and learners had been impacted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to end the crisis so that educational activities could restart on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, particularly in the main city, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a restriction by attacking transport vehicles on key routes.

Mali is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are brought in by land routes from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Long queues have been snaking around petrol stations in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The military government had in recent days reassured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the situation has endured.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

It said that the petroleum supply issues had impacted the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unpredictable ways.

Mali is presently governed by a military junta headed by the military leader, who took control in a coup in recently.

The junta had widespread approval when it took power, promising to deal with the ongoing instability triggered by a independence uprising in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been sent in 2013 to deal with the growing rebellion.

These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the military government has contracted Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

However, the militant uprising has continued and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain outside government control.