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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a critical petrol shortage caused by a blockade on fuel imports implemented by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister stated on state television that all education institutions would be inactive until 9 November, clarifying that the transportation of staff and students had been affected by the blockade.

He asserted that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to resolve the emergency so that educational activities could continue on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been experiencing a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a restriction by targeting fuel trucks on primary roads.

The country is landlocked, so all petroleum products are brought in by road from neighboring states such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been forming around gas pumps in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The military government had previously promised the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has continued.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in the capital declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would evacuate Mali amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing safety issues.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is now led by a military junta headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in 2021.

The junta had widespread approval when it assumed control, promising to tackle the long-running security crisis caused by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and France's military had been deployed in 2013 to deal with the increasing militant activity.

These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the current administration has contracted foreign fighters to tackle the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain outside government control.