Mali Shuts Down Educational Institutions and Higher Education Centers as Jihadist Restrictions Intensifies Petrol Shortage
Mali has suspended schools and colleges countrywide due to a critical energy crisis resulting from a blockade on energy resources implemented by militant groups.
The Education Minister announced on national broadcast that all education institutions would be inactive until 9 November, noting that the travel of employees and students had been affected by the blockade.
He asserted that the authorities were “making every effort” to end the situation so that academic sessions could restart on November 10th.
For weeks, Mali has been facing a petrol crisis, particularly in the main city, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by attacking tankers on key routes.
The country is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are transported by land routes from neighboring states such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.
Lengthy waits have been forming around petrol stations in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now reportedly fallen quiet.
The junta-led administration had previously assured citizens that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has endured.
Last week, the US Embassy in Bamako declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and escalating safety issues.
It said that the fuel disruptions had impacted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.
Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration led by General Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.
The military government had popular support when it assumed control, vowing to address the ongoing instability caused by a independence uprising in the northern region by Tuareg communities, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.
The international UN troops and French forces had been sent in previously to deal with the increasing militant activity.
Both have departed since the junta took over, and the military government has contracted foreign fighters to combat the instability.
However, the militant uprising has persisted and significant areas of the north and east of the country remain beyond state authority.
