Mali Closes Educational Institutions and Higher Education Centers as Jihadist Restrictions Exacerbates Fuel Shortage
Mali has closed schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a acute energy crisis resulting from a embargo on energy resources enforced by jihadist fighters.
Top education official announced on public media that all learning centers would remain closed until 9 November, explaining that the movement of staff and learners had been affected by the blockade.
He emphasized that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the crisis so that academic sessions could resume on the tenth of November.
For weeks, Mali has been facing a fuel shortage, particularly in the administrative center, after armed groups from an jihadist network initiated a restriction by striking fuel trucks on primary roads.
Mali is landlocked, so all petroleum products are brought in by truck from neighboring states such as Senegal and CĂ´te d'Ivoire.
Extended lines have been snaking around petrol stations in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly grown silent.
The military government had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has endured.
In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would evacuate Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and growing protection worries.
It said that the energy interruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unforeseen manners.
Mali is currently ruled by a army council led by General GoĂŻta, who assumed authority in a takeover in 2021.
The ruling council had public backing when it assumed control, vowing to deal with the protracted safety emergency triggered by a independence uprising in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.
The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been sent in 2013 to deal with the growing rebellion.
Both have left since the new administration came in, and the current administration has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the violence.
However, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain outside government control.
