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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and higher learning institutions across the nation due to a acute energy crisis triggered by a embargo on petroleum supplies implemented by militant groups.

Minister of Education stated on national broadcast that all academic facilities would remain closed until 9 November, noting that the movement of personnel and learners had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the crisis so that academic sessions could restart on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been experiencing a energy deficit, particularly in the main city, after insurgents from an jihadist network enforced a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on key routes.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been forming around fuel outlets in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently become deserted.

The military government had in recent days reassured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would leave the country amid the worsening fuel shortage and escalating protection worries.

It said that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the supply of electricity and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

Mali is now led by a army council headed by the military leader, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it assumed control, committing to tackle the ongoing instability caused by a independence uprising in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been deployed in previously to address the increasing militant activity.

Both have left since the new administration came in, and the current administration has employed private military contractors to combat the instability.

Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain beyond state authority.