🔗 Share this article

Mali has suspended schools and universities across the nation due to a severe energy crisis caused by a embargo on petroleum supplies enforced by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister stated on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until November 9th, explaining that the travel of staff and learners had been affected by the restrictions.

He asserted that the administration were “making every effort” to resolve the emergency so that classes could restart on the tenth of November.

For weeks, the nation has been experiencing a fuel shortage, notably in the capital Bamako, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a embargo by striking transport vehicles on major highways.

The country is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are delivered by truck from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Extended lines have been snaking around fuel outlets in the capital in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

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

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their dependents would depart Mali amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing protection worries.

It said that the energy interruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

Mali is presently governed by a armed forces administration led by the military leader, who assumed authority in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The ruling council had public backing when it took power, vowing to deal with the long-running security crisis triggered by a separatist rebellion in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been deployed in previously to address the growing rebellion.

These forces have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the military government has contracted private military contractors to address the instability.

However, the Islamist rebellion has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain not under administrative command.