🔗 Share this article

Mali has temporarily halted schools and colleges throughout the country due to a acute energy crisis resulting from a embargo on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education declared on public media that all education institutions would remain closed until November 9th, clarifying that the movement of personnel and learners had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the government officials were “making every effort” to alleviate the emergency so that academic sessions could resume on 10 November.

For weeks, the nation has been facing a energy deficit, especially in the main city, after militants from an jihadist network imposed a blockade by targeting transport vehicles on primary roads.

The country is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are brought in by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been snaking around gas pumps in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The ruling military council had in recent days assured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has endured.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would evacuate Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and escalating safety issues.

It noted that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the power distribution and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is now led by a military junta under the leadership of the military leader, who took control in a takeover in 2021.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it assumed control, vowing to deal with the ongoing instability prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and France's military had been deployed in 2013 to address the increasing militant activity.

Both have left since the new administration came in, and the current administration has hired foreign fighters to tackle the instability.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has continued and significant areas of the north and east of the nation remain outside government control.