The West African nation Suspends Schools and Universities as Islamist Militant Blockade Exacerbates Petrol Shortage

The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted educational facilities and universities throughout the country due to a severe fuel scarcity triggered by a restriction on energy resources implemented by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister stated on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the transportation of personnel and pupils had been impacted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the government officials were “making every effort” to resolve the situation so that educational activities could continue on the tenth of November.

For weeks, the nation has been grappling with a petrol crisis, notably in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on key routes.

The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are brought in by land routes from neighboring states such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been winding around gas pumps in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The military government had previously assured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has continued.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their dependents would evacuate Mali amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and escalating protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a armed forces administration led by the military leader, who seized power in a coup in recently.

The ruling council had popular support when it assumed control, vowing to tackle the long-running security crisis caused by a independence uprising in the northern region by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been deployed in 2013 to deal with the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have left since the junta took over, and the ruling council has hired Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain not under administrative command.