The West African nation Suspends Schools and Higher Education Centers as Islamist Militant Blockade Intensifies Fuel Crisis
The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and colleges throughout the country due to a acute fuel scarcity resulting from a restriction on petroleum supplies implemented by Islamist insurgents.
Top education official announced on state television that all education institutions would remain closed until the ninth of November, clarifying that the travel of staff and learners had been disrupted by the blockade.
He stated that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the situation so that classes could restart on November 10th.
For a number of weeks, the nation has been grappling with a fuel shortage, notably in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a embargo by striking transport vehicles on key routes.
Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by truck from neighboring states such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.
Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly become deserted.
The junta-led administration had previously assured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.
In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would leave Mali amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and growing safety issues.
It said that the energy interruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.
Mali is currently ruled by a army council under the leadership of General Goïta, who assumed authority in a coup in recently.
The military government had popular support when it assumed control, committing to tackle the ongoing instability caused by a autonomy movement in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.
The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been sent in a decade ago to combat the escalating insurgency.
These forces have left since the new administration came in, and the current administration has hired private military contractors to combat the violence.
However, the militant uprising has continued and significant areas of the north and east of the country remain outside government control.
