🔗 Share this article Mali Shuts Down Schools and Universities as Jihadist Blockade Intensifies Fuel Crisis Extended queues have been snaking around fuel pumps in the last few days The landlocked West African country has closed schools and colleges throughout the country due to a severe fuel scarcity resulting from a blockade on petroleum supplies enforced by Islamist insurgents. The Education Minister announced on national broadcast that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the movement of employees and pupils had been disrupted by the imposed limitations. He stated that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to resolve the crisis so that classes could restart on 10 November. For weeks, Mali has been grappling with a petrol crisis, especially in the main city, after militants from an jihadist network initiated a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on major highways. The country is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by road from neighboring states such as Senegal and the neighboring nation. Extended lines have been winding around petrol stations in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly become deserted. The ruling military council had previously assured citizens that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has endured. Last week, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would evacuate the country amid the intensifying energy crisis and growing security concerns. It explained that the petroleum supply issues had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners. The West African nation is currently ruled by a army council led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in recently. The ruling council had popular support when it assumed control, committing to deal with the long-running security crisis caused by a independence uprising in the north by Tuareg communities, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters. The UN peacekeeping mission and France's military had been stationed in previously to combat the escalating insurgency. These forces have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the ruling council has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the instability. Nonetheless, the militant uprising has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain beyond state authority.