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The landlocked West African country has closed educational facilities and colleges throughout the country due to a acute fuel scarcity resulting from a embargo on petroleum supplies imposed by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister announced on public media that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, clarifying that the transportation of personnel and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He asserted that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to end the emergency so that academic sessions could restart on 10 November.

For weeks, the nation has been facing a energy deficit, notably in the main city, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a restriction by striking tankers on major highways.

The country is without coastal access, so all energy resources are brought in by land routes from neighboring states such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been forming around petrol stations in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently grown silent.

The military government had earlier this month assured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has continued.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would leave the country amid the intensifying energy crisis and increasing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the supply of electricity and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

Mali is now led by a armed forces administration led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, committing to tackle the ongoing instability prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been sent in previously to combat the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the ruling council has contracted private military contractors to combat the violence.

However, the jihadist insurgency has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.