Mali Suspends Educational Institutions and Higher Education Centers as Jihadist Restrictions Worsens Fuel Emergency

The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a critical petrol shortage caused by a restriction on energy resources enforced by militant groups.

Top education official declared on public media that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, explaining that the travel of employees and students had been impacted by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the situation so that educational activities could restart on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been facing a petrol crisis, notably in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by targeting fuel trucks on major highways.

The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are brought in by land routes from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Extended lines have been snaking around gas pumps in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The military government had previously promised the public that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has persisted.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako stated that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would leave the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and escalating protection worries.

It said that the energy interruptions had affected the supply of electricity and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unexpected forms.

Mali is currently ruled by a military junta under the leadership of the military leader, who took control in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The junta had popular support when it came to authority, promising to deal with the long-running security crisis triggered by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and French forces had been sent in previously to combat the increasing militant activity.

The international troops have departed since the junta took over, and the current administration has employed Russian mercenaries to address the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain not under administrative command.