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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and universities across the nation due to a severe energy crisis triggered by a restriction on petroleum supplies implemented by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education stated on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of personnel and learners had been affected by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the administration were “doing everything possible” to end the emergency so that academic sessions could continue on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, the nation has been experiencing a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on primary roads.

The country is landlocked, so all energy resources are delivered by truck from neighboring states such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been snaking around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently become deserted.

The military government had previously reassured the public that it was only a passing concern, but the situation has endured.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their dependents would evacuate Mali amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is now led by a armed forces administration under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a coup in two years ago.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, promising to address the protracted safety emergency prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been deployed in previously to address the increasing militant activity.

The international troops have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the current administration has contracted private military contractors to combat the instability.

However, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the north and east of the state remain not under administrative command.