Mali has suspended all schools and universities nationwide as a worsening fuel crisis cripples transport, electricity, and daily life.
The government blamed the shortage on a blockade of fuel imports imposed by Islamist insurgents who have been attacking fuel tankers on highways leading into the country.
Education Minister Amadou Sy Savane said on state television that all learning institutions would remain closed until 9 November.
“The movement of staff and students has been severely affected,” he said, assuring that authorities were “doing everything possible” to restore supplies so classes could resume on 10 November.
The crisis has left the capital, Bamako, eerily quiet. Long queues now stretch around the few petrol stations still open, while transport fares and food prices have surged.
For a landlocked nation that depends on overland fuel imports from Senegal and Ivory Coast, the blockade has become a national emergency.
Security Vacuum and the Ghosts of Foreign Withdrawal
The military government, led by Gen. Assimi Goïta, had earlier dismissed the shortage as temporary. But the situation worsened after a series of militant attacks on fuel convoys, cutting off major supply routes to the capital.
The U.S. Embassy in Bamako last week ordered non-essential staff and their families to leave, warning that the fuel shortage could disrupt electricity and “the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.”
Observers say the crisis underscores Mali’s fragile security landscape. After the 2021 coup, the junta expelled both French troops and UN peacekeepers, replacing them with reuters.com/world/africa/russian-mercenaries-mali-2024-05-15/">Russian Wagner Group mercenaries.
Yet, jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and Islamic State still control much of the north and east, cutting trade routes and choking the economy.
In rural areas, entire communities now depend on the black market for fuel. Analysts warn that the education shutdown could deepen public discontent and test the junta’s legitimacy among the urban poor, once its strongest base of support.
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