The West African nation Shuts Down Schools and Higher Education Centers as Jihadist Blockade Intensifies Fuel Crisis

The landlocked West African country has closed schools and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a severe energy crisis triggered by a embargo on energy resources enforced by militant groups.

The Education Minister stated on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, clarifying that the travel of staff and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He asserted that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the situation so that academic sessions could restart on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a restriction by attacking tankers on primary roads.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all petroleum products are delivered by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Extended lines have been forming around petrol stations in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month reassured the public that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has persisted.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would depart the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and growing protection worries.

It said that the energy interruptions had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration led by the military leader, who assumed authority in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it took power, promising to tackle the ongoing instability prompted by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been deployed in a decade ago to address the growing rebellion.

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the military government has employed private military contractors to tackle the instability.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain outside government control.