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Mali has temporarily halted schools and universities throughout the country due to a acute energy crisis caused by a restriction on petroleum supplies imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on state television that all education institutions would be inactive until November 9th, clarifying that the movement of staff and learners had been impacted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the administration were “doing everything possible” to end the situation so that classes could restart on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, especially in the main city, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by striking transport vehicles on primary roads.

The country is landlocked, so all petroleum products are transported by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Extended lines have been winding around gas pumps in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month promised citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has persisted.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and growing protection worries.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had affected the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration led by General Goïta, who assumed authority in a coup in two years ago.

The ruling council had public backing when it took power, vowing to address the ongoing instability triggered by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been deployed in a decade ago to address the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have left since the military assumed power, and the military government has hired private military contractors to address the instability.

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