The West African nation Closes Educational Institutions and Higher Education Centers as Islamist Militant Restrictions Worsens Fuel Crisis
The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and universities countrywide due to a critical energy crisis triggered by a restriction on fuel imports imposed by Islamist insurgents.
Top education official announced on national broadcast that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, explaining that the transportation of personnel and students had been impacted by the imposed limitations.
He asserted that the administration were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the emergency so that classes could restart on 10 November.
For weeks, Mali has been facing a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a blockade by targeting tankers on key routes.
The country is landlocked, so all energy resources are delivered by road from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.
Lengthy waits have been snaking around gas pumps in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently grown silent.
The military government had in recent days reassured the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has endured.
In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and increasing safety issues.
It noted that the energy interruptions had impacted the power distribution and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.
Mali is now led by a army council under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a coup in two years ago.
The ruling council had widespread approval when it assumed control, committing to tackle the protracted safety emergency triggered by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.
The international UN troops and European soldiers had been sent in 2013 to address the growing rebellion.
The international troops have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the military government has hired foreign fighters to address the instability.
Nevertheless, the militant uprising has continued and extensive regions of the north and east of the country remain outside government control.
