Mali Shuts Down Schools and Higher Education Centers as Islamist Militant Restrictions Intensifies Fuel Shortage

Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe fuel scarcity triggered by a blockade on energy resources imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official stated on state television that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, clarifying that the movement of personnel and students had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to alleviate the crisis so that educational activities could resume on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, particularly in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a embargo by targeting transport vehicles on major highways.

The country is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are transported by truck from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Lengthy waits have been winding around petrol stations in the capital in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had in recent days promised the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has endured.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would leave the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and escalating safety issues.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

Mali is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a takeover in recently.

The ruling council had public backing when it assumed control, promising to tackle the long-running security crisis triggered by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been sent in 2013 to deal with the growing rebellion.

Both have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the military government has hired foreign fighters to tackle the insecurity.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has persisted and significant areas of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain outside government control.