🔗 Share this article

Mali has suspended schools and universities countrywide due to a critical petrol shortage resulting from a blockade on fuel imports imposed by militant groups.

The Education Minister announced on state television that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, explaining that the movement of personnel and pupils had been disrupted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the government officials were “making every effort” to resolve the emergency so that classes could resume on the tenth of November.

For weeks, Mali has been facing a petrol crisis, particularly in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on major highways.

The country is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are brought in by road from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around gas pumps in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently grown silent.

The ruling military council had earlier this month promised citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has endured.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would leave the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and escalating protection worries.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is now led by a army council under the leadership of General Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in recently.

The military government had public backing when it took power, promising to address the ongoing instability prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been sent in a decade ago to combat the increasing militant activity.

Both have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the ruling council has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the insecurity.

However, the militant uprising has persisted and significant areas of the north and east of the state remain outside government control.