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The landlocked West African country has closed schools and universities across the nation due to a acute petrol shortage resulting from a blockade on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on public media that all learning centers would be inactive until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of employees and pupils had been affected by the restrictions.

He asserted that the authorities were “making every effort” to resolve the emergency so that academic sessions could restart on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been facing a fuel shortage, notably in the main city, after militants from an jihadist network enforced a embargo by striking fuel trucks on primary roads.

Mali is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are transported by truck from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Long queues have been winding around fuel outlets in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently become deserted.

The junta-led administration had previously promised residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has endured.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating energy crisis and growing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

Mali is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in two years ago.

The military government had widespread approval when it came to authority, committing to address the ongoing instability triggered by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been sent in previously to deal with the growing rebellion.

Both have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the military government has contracted private military contractors to combat the insecurity.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain not under administrative command.