The West African nation Closes Educational Institutions and Universities as Jihadist Blockade Intensifies Fuel Crisis
Mali has closed educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a acute petrol shortage caused by a restriction on energy resources imposed by jihadist fighters.
The Education Minister stated on national broadcast that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the transportation of staff and pupils had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.
He stated that the administration were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the crisis so that educational activities could continue on 10 November.
For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a energy deficit, particularly in the capital Bamako, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a embargo by attacking transport vehicles on key routes.
Mali is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are brought in by road from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.
Extended lines have been snaking around gas pumps in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly become deserted.
The junta-led administration had earlier this month assured citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has endured.
In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would leave the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and growing security concerns.
It said that the petroleum supply issues had affected the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.
Mali is presently governed by a army council headed by the military leader, who took control in a takeover in recently.
The junta had popular support when it took power, promising to tackle the ongoing instability prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.
The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been stationed in 2013 to address the escalating insurgency.
Both have left since the junta took over, and the military government has hired foreign fighters to address the insecurity.
However, the militant uprising has endured and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain outside government control.
