🔗 Share this article The West African nation Suspends Educational Institutions and Higher Education Centers as Jihadist Restrictions Intensifies Petrol Crisis Lengthy queues have been snaking around petrol stations in the last few days The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and colleges throughout the country due to a severe energy crisis caused by a restriction on energy resources implemented by Islamist insurgents. The Education Minister announced on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until November 9th, clarifying that the movement of staff and pupils had been affected by the blockade. He emphasized that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to end the crisis so that educational activities could restart on November 10th. For weeks, the nation has been facing a energy deficit, especially in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on primary roads. Mali is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are delivered by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation. Lengthy waits have been snaking around gas pumps in the main city in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly fallen quiet. The ruling military council had earlier this month promised residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has continued. In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would depart Mali amid the intensifying energy crisis and growing protection worries. It said that the petroleum supply issues had affected the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the broader protection environment in unforeseen manners. The West African nation is presently governed by a military junta led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in two years ago. The ruling council had popular support when it came to authority, promising to tackle the protracted safety emergency caused by a independence uprising in the north by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants. The international UN troops and France's military had been stationed in previously to address the escalating insurgency. Both have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the current administration has employed private military contractors to combat the instability. Nonetheless, the militant uprising has endured and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain outside government control.