🔗 Share this article

Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a critical fuel scarcity triggered by a blockade on energy resources enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official announced on state television that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the movement of employees and students had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

He emphasized that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could restart on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, the nation has been grappling with a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a embargo by attacking transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are brought in by truck from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Long queues have been snaking around gas pumps in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The military government had in recent days reassured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has persisted.

Recently, the US Embassy in Bamako announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would leave the country amid the worsening energy crisis and increasing security concerns.

It noted that the energy interruptions had affected the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is presently governed by a army council led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a coup in 2021.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the long-running security crisis triggered by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The UN peacekeeping mission and France's military had been stationed in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the ruling council has hired private military contractors to combat the insecurity.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain outside government control.