In Bamako’s business district, hundreds of cars and motorcycles sit stranded day and night on a boulevard waiting for one of three side-by-side petrol stations to finally have fuel.

Jihadists have rendered everyday life in the west African country increasingly impossible in recent weeks via a fuel blockade that has brought Mali to its knees.

“I’ve been here for three days. I’ve spent two nights here”, Karim Coulibaly, a bus driver in his 30s, told AFP from the line, adding that the lack of fuel had rendered him “unemployed”.

Over the course of three days, only one tanker arrived to replenish the stations’ tanks, and the fuel was gone within an hour, as authorities watched on.

Since back-to-back coups in 2020 and 2021, Mali has been ruled by a military junta that is struggling to counte

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