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Mali has closed schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage triggered by a restriction on energy resources implemented by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister stated on national broadcast that all academic facilities would be inactive until November 9th, explaining that the transportation of staff and learners had been impacted by the blockade.

He asserted that the administration were “working tirelessly” to end the emergency so that educational activities could restart on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, particularly in the capital Bamako, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a embargo by attacking transport vehicles on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all petroleum products are brought in by truck from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been winding around fuel outlets in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month reassured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the situation has endured.

Recently, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would depart Mali amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and increasing safety issues.

It explained that the energy interruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is now led by a military junta under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

The ruling council had public backing when it assumed control, promising to deal with the protracted safety emergency prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and France's military had been sent in a decade ago to deal with the escalating insurgency.

These forces have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the ruling council has contracted Russian mercenaries to combat the violence.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.