DAKAR (Reuters) -CMA CGM has reversed a decision to suspend cargo shipments to Mali over safety concerns and a fuel shortage, the French group said on Thursday following a meeting with the authorities.
In early September, al Qaeda-linked militant group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) announced a blockade on fuel imports to the landlocked West African country. The group has since attacked convoys of fuel tankers attempting to enter the country or reach the capital, Bamako.
“Overland transport has been heavily impacted in terms of both transit times and costs, as a result of security challenges and fuel shortages,” CMA CGM said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
“Despite these conditions, and in order to continue serving its customers, CMA CGM has decided not to suspend its activities to Mali, including overland transport.”
The company met with officials at Mali’s ministry of transport earlier on Thursday, it added.
CMA CGM, one of the world’s largest shipping firms, had issued a customer advisory on Wednesday saying that road shipments to Mali were suspended until further notice.
It had also offered clients to return their cargo sent to Mali, store it or change the port of destination.
Security analysts say JNIM, which has been operating for months within 50 km (30 miles) of Bamako, currently has neither the intention nor the military capability to seize the city of 4 million people, which it briefly attacked last year.
But the group’s strategy of gradually starving Bamako of fuel, forcing schools to shut and depriving businesses of diesel-generated electricity poses the gravest challenge yet to the military leaders who took power in 2021.
(Reporting by Anait Miridzhanian and Mali newsroom. Additional reporting by Gus Trompiz. Editing by Mark Potter)
