Influencer is killed in a public square by jihadist groups in Mali

However, the situation seemed to have improved slightly in recent days. Several convoys of fuel trucks, under military escort, were delivered to the capital Bamako and other parts of the country. Container shipping companies, such as the Italian-Swiss MSC and the French CMA-CGM, which had announced the suspension of their operations in Mali, reversed their decision after agreements with the government.

Queues to get fuel

In the capital, the situation has improved, although long queues at gas stations still persist, after several weeks of fuel shortages, which affected all sectors of the economy. Schools and universities reopened yesterday, after two weeks of closure ordered by authorities due to lack of fuel. However, public transport has not yet fully resumed, and access to electricity has worsened considerably since the lockdown. According to a security source consulted by AFP, only “110 of the more than 700 gas stations are operating sporadically in the capital.”

Today, “vast areas are outside the effective control of the state,” which is “concentrating its forces around Bamako to guarantee the regime’s security,” Bakary Sambe of the Timbuktu Institute, a research group based in Dakar, Senegal, told AFP on Tuesday. The situation remains more difficult in the rest of the country, where several cities in the south and center are under jihadist blockade, and fuel trucks are slow to arrive.

Faced with the deteriorating situation, the US and the UK announced two weeks ago the withdrawal of their non-essential personnel from Mali, and several embassies, including France, asked their citizens to leave the country. The chairman of the African Union Commission (AUC), Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, on Sunday expressed his “deep concern” regarding the deteriorating security situation in Mali and called for “urgent international action”.