The West African nation Shuts Down Educational Institutions and Higher Education Centers as Islamist Militant Blockade Exacerbates Fuel Crisis
The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and colleges throughout the country due to a acute fuel scarcity resulting from a blockade on fuel imports implemented by jihadist fighters.
The Education Minister announced on national broadcast that all education institutions would remain closed until November 9th, clarifying that the movement of employees and students had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.
He asserted that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to end the crisis so that classes could restart on the tenth of November.
For weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after militants from an jihadist network initiated a embargo by attacking fuel trucks on key routes.
The country is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are transported by road from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.
Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly become deserted.
The junta-led administration had in recent days promised the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has endured.
Recently, the American diplomatic mission in the capital declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would depart Mali amid the worsening petrol scarcity and growing protection worries.
It said that the petroleum supply issues had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.
Mali is presently governed by a army council led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.
The military government had popular support when it came to authority, promising to tackle the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.
The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been sent in a decade ago to address the escalating insurgency.
These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the military government has contracted foreign fighters to address the violence.
Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the north and east of the nation remain beyond state authority.
