Mali Closes Educational Institutions and Universities as Jihadist Blockade Intensifies Petrol Crisis

Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a acute energy crisis resulting from a restriction on fuel imports implemented by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official announced on public media that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the movement of staff and learners had been impacted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the emergency so that academic sessions could continue on the tenth of November.

For weeks, the nation has been facing a petrol crisis, notably in the administrative center, after militants from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a embargo by striking fuel trucks on key routes.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are brought in by road from adjacent nations such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Extended lines have been snaking around gas pumps in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The military government had previously assured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has persisted.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako stated that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would evacuate Mali amid the intensifying energy crisis and escalating security concerns.

It explained that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a army council under the leadership of the military leader, who took control in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The military government had popular support when it came to authority, promising to deal with the ongoing instability triggered by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by Tuareg communities, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The international UN troops and France's military had been deployed in a decade ago to combat the escalating insurgency.

Both have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the military government has employed Russian mercenaries to combat the insecurity.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has endured and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain outside government control.