🔗 Share this article

The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage triggered by a blockade on petroleum supplies implemented by militant groups.

Top education official declared on public media that all learning centers would remain closed until 9 November, noting that the transportation of employees and learners had been affected by the blockade.

He stated that the authorities were “making every effort” to alleviate the emergency so that classes could resume on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a petrol crisis, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a restriction by attacking transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are delivered by land routes from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around gas pumps in the main city in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly fallen quiet.

The military government had previously promised citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in the capital announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would depart the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and growing safety issues.

It noted that the energy interruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a armed forces administration headed by the military leader, who assumed authority in a takeover in 2021.

The military government had public backing when it assumed control, vowing to address the ongoing instability triggered by a separatist rebellion in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and France's military had been stationed in a decade ago to deal with the escalating insurgency.

These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the military government has contracted foreign fighters to combat the violence.

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