🔗 Share this article

Mali has temporarily halted schools and colleges countrywide due to a critical fuel scarcity resulting from a embargo on petroleum supplies enforced by militant groups.

The Education Minister stated on state television that all education institutions would remain closed until the ninth of November, noting that the travel of staff and learners had been impacted by the restrictions.

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

For weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, especially in the main city, after armed groups from an jihadist network imposed a restriction by striking tankers on major highways.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by land routes from neighboring states such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Long queues have been snaking around petrol stations in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a passing concern, but the situation has persisted.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would leave Mali amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and escalating safety issues.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unpredictable ways.

Mali is presently governed by a military junta headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a coup in recently.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, committing to tackle the long-running security crisis caused by a autonomy movement in the northern region by the Tuareg population, which was then taken over by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and France's military had been stationed in a decade ago to combat the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the current administration has hired foreign fighters to combat the instability.

However, the militant uprising has endured and significant areas of the north and east of the country remain beyond state authority.