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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe fuel scarcity resulting from a restriction on petroleum supplies implemented by militant groups.

Top education official declared on public media that all academic facilities would stay shut until the ninth of November, explaining that the movement of staff and learners had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the government officials were “making every effort” to end the situation so that classes could restart on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been grappling with a petrol crisis, notably in the main city, after insurgents from an jihadist network imposed a embargo by attacking tankers on key routes.

Mali is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are transported by truck from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month reassured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has endured.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their dependents would leave the country amid the worsening energy crisis and increasing security concerns.

It noted that the energy interruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

Mali is presently governed by a army council under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a military overthrow in 2021.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, promising to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then taken over by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and French forces had been deployed in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.

The international troops have left since the junta took over, and the military government has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the violence.

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