Mali Shuts Down Schools and Universities as Jihadist Restrictions Exacerbates Fuel Shortage
Mali has closed schools and universities countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage triggered by a restriction on fuel imports implemented by jihadist fighters.
The Education Minister declared on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until the ninth of November, explaining that the transportation of staff and pupils had been affected by the restrictions.
He asserted that the administration were “making every effort” to alleviate the emergency so that academic sessions could restart on 10 November.
For a number of weeks, the nation has been experiencing a petrol crisis, especially in the capital Bamako, after militants from an jihadist network initiated a restriction by targeting tankers on key routes.
Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by land routes from neighboring states such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.
Extended lines have been winding around petrol stations in the capital in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently become deserted.
The ruling military council had earlier this month assured citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has continued.
In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would evacuate the country amid the intensifying energy crisis and increasing protection worries.
It explained that the fuel disruptions had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “ability to disturb” the broader protection environment in unforeseen manners.
Mali is currently ruled by a military junta under the leadership of the military leader, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.
The junta had public backing when it took power, vowing to tackle the ongoing instability caused by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.
The international UN troops and French forces had been deployed in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.
These forces have departed since the military assumed power, and the military government has hired Russian mercenaries to combat the violence.
Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and extensive regions of the north and east of the nation remain not under administrative command.
