Mali Closes Schools and Universities as Islamist Militant Restrictions Worsens Fuel Emergency

Long queues at petrol stations in Mali
Prolonged lines have been snaking around petrol stations in recent weeks

Mali has suspended schools and colleges throughout the country due to a acute petrol shortage triggered by a restriction on fuel imports imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official announced on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until the ninth of November, explaining that the transportation of staff and learners had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He emphasized that the government officials were “making every effort” to resolve the situation so that classes could restart on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a embargo by targeting tankers on major highways.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are transported by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The ruling military council had earlier this month promised residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has continued.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in the capital announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would leave the country amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had affected the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

Mali is presently governed by a army council headed by the military leader, who took control in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The military government had widespread approval when it came to authority, vowing to deal with the ongoing instability prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been sent in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.

Both have left since the new administration came in, and the military government has contracted foreign fighters to tackle the insecurity.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain beyond state authority.

Aaron Norman
Aaron Norman

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