The West African nation Closes Educational Institutions and Universities as Jihadist Blockade Exacerbates Petrol Emergency
The landlocked West African country has closed schools and colleges throughout the country due to a severe fuel scarcity triggered by a blockade on fuel imports implemented by militant groups.
Top education official stated on state television that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the transportation of staff and learners had been affected by the blockade.
He emphasized that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to resolve the emergency so that educational activities could resume on 10 November.
For a number of weeks, the nation has been experiencing a petrol crisis, notably in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a blockade by striking tankers on major highways.
Mali is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are delivered by truck from adjacent nations such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.
Extended lines have been forming around petrol stations in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently grown silent.
The ruling military council had in recent days assured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.
In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would leave Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and growing safety issues.
It said that the energy interruptions 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 army council headed by General Goïta, who seized power in a coup in two years ago.
The junta had widespread approval when it took power, promising to deal with the ongoing instability triggered by a independence uprising in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.
The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been stationed in 2013 to address the increasing militant activity.
These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the military government has hired Russian mercenaries to tackle the violence.
However, the jihadist insurgency has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the state remain not under administrative command.
