🔗 Share this article

Mali has suspended educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage caused by a restriction on petroleum supplies imposed by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister announced on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, clarifying that the travel of personnel and pupils had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to resolve the emergency so that classes could continue on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a petrol crisis, especially in the capital Bamako, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a restriction by attacking transport vehicles on key routes.

The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are delivered by land routes from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been forming around fuel outlets in the main city in the last several days, and the city's typically busy 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 emergency has continued.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would depart Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and escalating safety issues.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a military junta led by the military leader, who seized power in a takeover in recently.

The junta had public backing when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

The international UN troops and France's military had been stationed in 2013 to deal with the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have departed since the new administration came in, and the ruling council has hired private military contractors to tackle the instability.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain outside government control.