The West African nation Suspends Schools and Higher Education Centers as Islamist Militant Blockade Intensifies Petrol Shortage

The landlocked West African country has closed schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage caused by a embargo on petroleum supplies enforced by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister declared on state television that all academic facilities would remain closed until the ninth of November, noting that the travel of employees and students had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to resolve the crisis so that academic sessions could continue on 10 November.

For several weeks, the nation has been facing a fuel shortage, particularly in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a blockade by striking 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 Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been winding around gas pumps in the capital in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The ruling military council 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 Bamako declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave Mali amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a armed forces administration led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in 2021.

The junta had public backing when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the long-running security crisis prompted by a independence uprising in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been deployed in previously to deal with the increasing militant activity.

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the military government has employed private military contractors to address the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and extensive regions of the north and east of the nation remain outside government control.