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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a severe energy crisis triggered by a blockade on petroleum supplies enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official stated on state television that all education institutions would be inactive until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of personnel and learners had been affected by the blockade.

He stated that the authorities were “making every effort” to end the situation so that classes could continue on 10 November.

For several weeks, Mali has been grappling with a petrol crisis, especially in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a embargo by targeting fuel trucks on major highways.

The country is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are delivered by land routes from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Extended lines have been snaking around petrol stations in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The military government had earlier this month reassured citizens that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has continued.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and increasing protection worries.

It said that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a armed forces administration under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in recently.

The junta had widespread approval when it took power, promising to deal with the long-running security crisis triggered by a separatist rebellion in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

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

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the current administration has hired Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain not under administrative command.