🔗 Share this article

The landlocked West African country has closed educational facilities and colleges countrywide due to a acute fuel scarcity resulting from a restriction on fuel imports imposed by militant groups.

Minister of Education declared on public media that all academic facilities would be inactive until 9 November, noting that the transportation of staff and learners had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the situation so that academic sessions could restart on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been facing a energy deficit, especially in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a embargo by targeting transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are brought in by truck from neighboring states such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been winding around fuel outlets in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently grown silent.

The military government had previously reassured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has continued.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and escalating security concerns.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is now led by a military junta headed by the military leader, who seized power in a coup in recently.

The junta had widespread approval when it took power, vowing to tackle the ongoing instability caused by a independence uprising in the northern region by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and France's military had been stationed in previously to address the growing rebellion.

The international troops have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the military government has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the instability.

However, the jihadist insurgency has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain outside government control.