🔗 Share this article

The landlocked West African country has closed schools and colleges throughout the country due to a acute petrol shortage caused by a embargo on fuel imports implemented by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister stated on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, explaining that the movement of personnel and students had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

He stated that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to end the situation so that educational activities could continue on November 10th.

For several weeks, the nation has been experiencing a fuel shortage, particularly in the main city, after militants from an jihadist network enforced a blockade by striking fuel trucks on primary roads.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all petroleum products are delivered by truck from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around gas pumps in the main city in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month reassured the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has endured.

Last week, the US Embassy in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would depart Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and growing safety issues.

It said that the petroleum supply issues had impacted the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is presently governed by a army council under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a coup in 2021.

The junta had widespread approval when it took power, promising to address the ongoing instability prompted by a independence uprising in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The UN peacekeeping mission and France's military had been deployed in a decade ago to deal with the growing rebellion.

These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the military government has hired private military contractors to tackle the violence.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain beyond state authority.