🔗 Share this article The West African nation Suspends Schools and Higher Education Centers as Islamist Militant Blockade Intensifies Fuel Shortage Extended queues have been forming around petrol stations in recent weeks The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and colleges across the nation due to a critical energy crisis triggered by a embargo on energy resources enforced by militant groups. The Education Minister declared on public media that all academic facilities would stay shut until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of employees and students had been impacted by the imposed limitations. He asserted that the authorities were “making every effort” to resolve the situation so that educational activities could restart on 10 November. For a number of weeks, Mali has been facing a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a embargo by targeting fuel trucks on key routes. The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are brought in by truck from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation. Extended lines have been snaking around petrol stations in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now reportedly grown silent. The ruling military council had previously reassured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has continued. Recently, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating energy crisis and escalating safety issues. It said 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 armed forces administration led by General Goïta, who seized power in a coup in recently. The military government had popular support when it took power, promising to deal with the ongoing instability caused by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants. The international UN troops and France's military had been deployed in 2013 to deal with the escalating insurgency. These forces have left since the military assumed power, and the military government has hired Russian mercenaries to tackle the violence. Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has endured and significant areas of the north and east of the country remain beyond state authority.