Mali Closes Schools and Higher Education Centers as Jihadist Restrictions Exacerbates Fuel Emergency

Mali has suspended educational facilities and colleges countrywide due to a critical fuel scarcity caused by a restriction on petroleum supplies imposed by militant groups.

Minister of Education declared on public media that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, explaining that the transportation of employees and learners had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He stated that the administration were “making every effort” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could resume on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, the nation has been grappling with a energy deficit, particularly in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are delivered by land routes from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Extended lines have been winding around petrol stations in the main city in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently grown silent.

The military government had previously reassured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has continued.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in the capital announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart the country amid the deteriorating energy crisis and escalating safety issues.

It said that the fuel disruptions had affected the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a military junta led by the military leader, who assumed authority in a coup in recently.

The ruling council had public backing when it assumed control, vowing to deal with the ongoing instability prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been stationed in a decade ago to combat the escalating insurgency.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the current administration has contracted Russian mercenaries to tackle the instability.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.