Mali’s capital has grown quieter in the dark. Across Bamako and beyond, entire neighborhoods now spend long nights without electricity, while daylight hours bring fuel shortages, stranded trucks, and roads worn into trenches. What began as a domestic energy crisis has evolved into a regional one—rooted as much in broken diplomacy as in broken infrastructure.

For months, communities across Mali have faced rolling blackouts lasting up to ten hours at a time. Diesel generators have become a lifeline for those who can still afford them, but the fuel itself is turning into a luxury good. Long queues outside shuttered or rationed gas stations have become part of daily life, while scarcity has rippled through every sector—transport, agriculture, fishing, and commerce—raising operating costs and threatening entire supply chains.

The crisis’s origins are layered. Years of underinvestment and chronic mismanagement weakened the country’s energy infrastructure. But the situation deteriorated sharply in early 2025 when Mali’s already fragile fuel supply became ensnared in geopolitical fallout with Algeria.

Until recently, Algeria was among Mali’s primary fuel suppliers. Its subsidized gasoline and diesel, much of it entering Mali through both legal and informal trade networks, sustained northern and central regions where state logistics were limited. That arrangement collapsed in April 2025, when Algerian air defenses shot down a Malian drone near the border. Bamako accused Algiers of supporting northern rebel groups, while Algeria retaliated by shutting the border and blocking all fuel shipments to Mali.

The effect was immediate. In the northern cities of Timbuktu and Ménaka, the price of gasoline surged from roughly 700 CFA francs per liter to over 5,000 francs, even hitting 7,000 in remote areas . Weekly markets emptied, transport services ground to a halt, and small farmers abandoned irrigation for lack of diesel. What little fuel still reached Bamako came via circuitous routes through Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, both vulnerable to jihadist blockade and theft.

To mitigate the loss, Mali turned to Niger, signing new bilateral agreements for the supply of up to 150 million liters of diesel annually at discounted rates. While the initiative aims to replace Algerian imports, convoys from Niger remain subject to repeated attacks in the Tillabéri border zone, making the arrangement precarious. 

Meanwhile, the al‑Qaeda‑linked group Jama’at Nusrat al‑Islam wal‑Muslimin (JNIM) has capitalized on the disruption. Since mid‑2025, its fighters have enforced a blockade across major western supply routes, imposing taxes, targeting Nigerien tankers, and framing their campaign as moral warfare against the state. In Bamako, empty fuel stations and halting lights now stand as symbols of this intertwined insurgent and diplomatic siege.

In response, the junta led by Colonel Assimi Goïta has sought to project strength. On October 19 and 20, the Malian Air Force carried out airstrikes in Ségou, targeting suspected JNIM camps and claiming dozens of militants killed. State‑aligned newspapers portrayed the strikes as a decisive counter‑offensive, though experts caution that air operations cannot easily dismantle the network of checkpoints and parallel taxation underpinning JNIM’s control in rural areas.

At the same time, Mali’s basic infrastructure is collapsing. The Bamako–Kayes highway, a major route to Senegal, is disintegrating. The Bamako–Sikasso corridor and the Ségou–Mopti–Gao road, essential for internal commerce, are increasingly impassable. Even local urban roads have become hazards. Projects continue to be announced but rarely completed.

The growing decay has turned a technical emergency into a governance crisis. When lights fade, when fuel disappears, when roads crumble, citizens see more than managerial failure—they see the erosion of a social contract. Each blackout and blocked convoy reinforces a sense that the state cannot meet even minimal expectations.

For Bamako’s rulers, legitimacy now hinges on restoring basic functionality: reliable power, safe roads, steady fuel. Achieving any of these goals will require breaking both the JNIM blockade and the diplomatic deadlock with Algeria—an unlikely feat for a government facing simultaneous isolation, insurgency, and economic paralysis. Until these goals are achieved, Mali’s rolling blackouts and destroyed infrastructure are the result of insecurity, irrational diplomacy, and just plain exhaustion.