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The landlocked West African country has closed educational facilities and colleges countrywide due to a critical energy crisis resulting from a embargo on fuel imports imposed by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister declared on state television that all learning centers would remain closed until November 9th, explaining that the travel of personnel and pupils had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

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

For a number of weeks, the nation has been facing a petrol crisis, especially in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a blockade by striking fuel trucks on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all petroleum products are delivered by road from adjacent nations such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Long queues have been snaking around gas pumps in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month reassured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing safety issues.

It noted that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a army council headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in 2021.

The junta had popular support when it assumed control, promising to address the long-running security crisis triggered by a autonomy movement in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been sent in previously to combat the escalating insurgency.

Both have left since the junta took over, and the military government has contracted foreign fighters to combat the instability.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has continued and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain outside government control.