Mali Suspends Schools and Universities as Jihadist Restrictions Exacerbates Fuel Emergency
The landlocked West African country has closed educational facilities and universities throughout the country due to a acute fuel scarcity caused by a restriction on fuel imports imposed by Islamist insurgents.
Top education official declared on national broadcast that all learning centers would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the travel of staff and students had been disrupted by the restrictions.
He emphasized that the government officials were “making every effort” to alleviate the situation so that classes could resume on November 10th.
For a number of weeks, the nation has been experiencing a energy deficit, particularly in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by attacking tankers on key routes.
The country is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are transported by truck from bordering countries such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.
Extended lines have been snaking around gas pumps in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently grown silent.
The ruling military council had earlier this month reassured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has endured.
In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would leave Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and growing protection worries.
It said that the fuel disruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.
Mali is presently governed by a military junta led by General Goïta, who took control in a takeover in recently.
The junta had popular support when it took power, promising to deal with the protracted safety emergency caused by a autonomy movement in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then taken over by extremist groups.
The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been deployed in previously to deal with the growing rebellion.
The international troops have left since the junta took over, and the current administration has employed Russian mercenaries to address the insecurity.
Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and significant areas of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain not under administrative command.
