Mali Suspends Schools and Higher Education Centers as Jihadist Blockade Intensifies Fuel Emergency

Mali has closed educational facilities and colleges countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage resulting from a blockade on petroleum supplies enforced by jihadist fighters.

Top education official stated on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until 9 November, explaining that the movement of personnel and learners had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

He stated that the government officials were “making every effort” to alleviate the crisis so that educational activities could continue on November 10th.

For several weeks, Mali has been grappling with a petrol crisis, particularly in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on key routes.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

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

The junta-led administration had earlier this month assured citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has continued.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would evacuate Mali amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unpredictable ways.

Mali is now led by a army council under the leadership of General Goïta, who assumed authority in a military overthrow in recently.

The junta had popular support when it assumed control, vowing to deal with the long-running security crisis caused by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been stationed in previously to deal with the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have left since the military assumed power, and the military government has contracted foreign fighters to address the instability.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain beyond state authority.