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The landlocked West African country has closed educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage triggered by a embargo on fuel imports enforced by militant groups.

Minister of Education announced on state television that all learning centers would stay shut until 9 November, explaining that the movement of staff and learners had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

He emphasized that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to resolve the emergency so that educational activities could restart on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been facing a energy deficit, particularly in the capital Bamako, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a embargo by striking transport vehicles on major highways.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all fuel supplies are delivered by truck from bordering countries such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Extended lines have been winding around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The ruling military council had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has endured.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would depart the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing security concerns.

It said that the energy interruptions had affected the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a military junta led by General Goïta, who seized power in a military overthrow in 2021.

The military government had popular support when it took power, vowing to address the ongoing instability prompted by a independence uprising in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by extremist groups.

The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been deployed in a decade ago to deal with the increasing militant activity.

Both have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the current administration has hired private military contractors to combat the instability.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain outside government control.