Mali Suspends Educational Institutions and Universities as Jihadist Blockade Intensifies Fuel Crisis
Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and colleges countrywide due to a acute fuel scarcity caused by a embargo on energy resources implemented by jihadist fighters.
The Education Minister announced on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until November 9th, explaining that the travel of employees and pupils had been disrupted by the blockade.
He asserted that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to alleviate the emergency so that classes could resume on the tenth of November.
For a number of weeks, the nation has been grappling with a fuel shortage, notably in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a restriction by attacking tankers on major highways.
Mali is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.
Long queues have been forming around petrol stations in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now reportedly grown silent.
The junta-led administration had in recent days reassured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has endured.
In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart Mali amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing security concerns.
It explained that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.
The West African nation is currently ruled by a army council headed by the military leader, who seized power in a coup in two years ago.
The military government had widespread approval when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the protracted safety emergency caused by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.
The international UN troops and European soldiers had been stationed in previously to address the growing rebellion.
Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the ruling council has employed foreign fighters to tackle the insecurity.
However, the Islamist rebellion has endured and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain not under administrative command.