Since September 2025, the fuel convoy blockade imposed by JNIM has turned Mali’s supply routes into veritable front lines. In Bamako and cities across the interior, the shortage has driven up transport costs, disrupted electricity, paralysed economic activity, and hampered essential services. One year on, this strategy of economic suffocation has thrown into sharp relief a major weakness of the military government: its inability to secure the country’s vital arteries.
An economic weapon, not just a road blockade
On 7 September 2025, Abou Houzeïfa Bina Diarra appeared in a video to announce a ban on transporting fuel into Mali from several neighbouring countries, notably Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Guinea. At the same time, the activities of Diarra Transport were targeted.
The first incidents could have been dismissed as isolated cases. Malian authorities at the time spoke of accidents and traffic difficulties caused by rains. But within days, the reality became hard to conceal.
On 14 September, JNIM, an Al-Qaeda affiliate, attacked a major convoy of fuel tankers on the Kayes-Bamako axis. The attacks then multiplied on the main commercial roads. An investigation by Bellingcat had already documented, by autumn 2025, more than 130 tankers destroyed in several verified attacks.
The choice of targets is far from trivial. Mali is a landlocked country heavily dependent on fuel imports brought in by road. The axes linking Bamako to the Senegalese and Ivorian ports and borders thus constitute a veritable national economic artery.
JNIM has not merely sought to burn trucks. It understood that by attacking fuel, it could hit nearly every sector of the economy.
Fuel becomes the nerve of the crisis
In Bamako, the first consequences were visible at petrol stations. Endless queues, closed stations, or rationing: the capital gradually faced an unusual shortage.
By autumn 2025, the price of fuel available on some markets had skyrocketed, while transport became more expensive. Reuters reported long queues in the capital, with shortages also noted in Ségou, Mopti, and San.
The mechanism is simple: when a fuel tanker cannot circulate, dozens of other activities slow down. Taxis and intercity transport raise their fares or reduce rotations. Goods cost more to transport. Merchants pass on the extra costs. Households, for their part, see their purchasing power decline.
Fuel then becomes much more than a vehicle expense: it becomes a component of the price of almost everything.
This situation also affected electricity. The energy sector’s dependence on fuel makes supply disruptions particularly sensitive. A Bellingcat analysis, relying notably on satellite imagery, observed a decrease in Bamako’s nocturnal lighting during the crisis.
From schools to hospitals, the whole society pays the price
The economic effect did not stop at businesses.
Educational institutions and universities were disrupted, sometimes closed during certain periods. With transport difficult, pupils, students, and teachers could no longer move around normally.
The health sector was also hit. Médecins Sans Frontières reported that fuel shortages complicated patient travel, limited the power supply to medical facilities, and made evacuations slower and costlier. At the Point G hospital in Bamako, the organisation noted a 15% drop in consultations in its breast and cervical cancer treatment programme.
In interior cities, the situation is even more worrying. Bla, San, or Mopti do not have the same absorption capacity as the capital. When supplies become scarce, consequences can quickly become systemic: generators stopped, transport reduced, businesses slowed, and public services disrupted.
In other words, the blockade turns a military operation into a social crisis.
A strategic humiliation for the junta
For JNIM, this strategy has a considerable advantage: it allows striking the government without needing to take Bamako.
The group attacks what makes the capital function. It does not need to physically control every petrol station. It only needs to make the roads dangerous enough to deter transporters.
That is precisely what makes this campaign particularly embarrassing for Assimi Goïta’s junta.
Since coming to power, the military regime has made sovereignty and territorial reconquest the heart of its discourse. It has broken with several Western partners, ended MINUSMA’s presence, and strengthened its partnership with Russia. But the fuel crisis raises a much more concrete question: what use is this security strategy if the state cannot guarantee the passage of a fuel tanker to its capital?
Army-escorted convoys have indeed managed to reach Bamako. Some arrivals were even celebrated as victories. But the very fact that the arrival of a hundred tankers can become a national event says much about the scale of the crisis.
Propaganda can present each arrived convoy as a show of force. Economically, it is also an admission of vulnerability: ordinary supply has become a military operation.
On 25 April, the security crisis reaches the heart of power
The fuel crisis obviously does not alone explain the attacks of 25 April 2026. But their political impact was considerable.
That day, coordinated attacks struck several localities and military positions, including Kati, Bamako, Mopti, Gao, and Kidal. General Sadio Camara, the defence minister, was mortally wounded during the attack on his residence in Kati. His death was officially confirmed by the Malian government.
The event was a shock for a regime whose legitimacy largely rests on its ability to restore security.
A few months earlier, the government had already to mobilise military escorts to protect fuel convoys. In April, it was the very heart of its security apparatus that was directly struck.
The symbolism is hard to ignore: while the junta promised to retake control of the territory, armed groups demonstrated their ability to disrupt trade routes, suffocate the economy, and reach centres of power right up to Bamako’s immediate environs.
One year on, the economy remains hostage to insecurity
The latest reported attack on fuel convoys, on 2 September 2026 between Fana and Ségou, reminds that the crisis is far from over. Tankers were reportedly set ablaze again, and soldiers killed.
According to assessments published in 2026, more than 300 tankers have been destroyed since the campaign began.
However, these figures must be handled with caution: access to the ground is limited, and information from the parties to the conflict is difficult to verify independently. This opacity has itself become a problem.
Because behind the numbers lies a much simpler reality: an entire country cannot function normally when its main supply routes become war zones.
JNIM has succeeded in turning a geographic weakness — Mali’s landlockedness — into a strategic weapon. The junta, for its part, struggles to show it has a lasting answer to this threat.
Conclusion: when securing the economy becomes a battle
One year after the start of the blockade, fuel has become one of the best indicators of Mali’s crisis. Each fuel tanker that reaches Bamako attests both to the state’s capacity to react and to its inability to normalise the roads in the long term.
JNIM has understood something essential: it is not necessary to conquer a capital to weaken a regime. Sometimes it is enough to cut off its supplies.
For the junta, the challenge thus goes far beyond counterterrorism. It is now a matter of restoring traffic, protecting economic infrastructure, and rebuilding the trust of transporters, businesses, and populations.
And it is precisely on this ground that its sovereignty discourse faces its most brutal test: a state is sovereign when it can protect its roads, feed its economy, and guarantee essential services to its people. One year after the start of the blockade, Mali is still far from that.
