🔗 Share this article

The landlocked West African country has closed schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a critical petrol shortage resulting from a embargo on petroleum supplies enforced by militant groups.

Minister of Education stated on state television that all education institutions would be inactive until November 9th, explaining that the travel of personnel and pupils had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the authorities were “making every effort” to resolve the emergency so that educational activities could resume on November 10th.

For several weeks, Mali has been facing a energy deficit, especially in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a blockade by targeting transport vehicles on primary roads.

The country is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been forming around fuel outlets in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The military government had previously assured citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has continued.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in the capital stated that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would evacuate the country amid the worsening petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

It noted that the energy interruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

Mali is now led by a army council led by the military leader, who took control in a coup in 2021.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the ongoing instability caused by a independence uprising in the northern region by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and France's military had been deployed in 2013 to address the increasing militant activity.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the ruling council has employed private military contractors to tackle the violence.

Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has continued and extensive regions of the north and east of the country remain not under administrative command.