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The landlocked West African country has closed educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a acute petrol shortage triggered by a embargo on petroleum supplies imposed by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister declared on national broadcast that all learning centers would be inactive until the ninth of November, noting that the transportation of personnel and students had been impacted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the situation so that educational activities could restart on 10 November.

For several weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a blockade by striking transport vehicles on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all energy resources are brought in by truck from bordering countries such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

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

The ruling military council had in recent days assured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has persisted.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would depart Mali amid the worsening petrol scarcity and increasing safety issues.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

Mali is presently governed by a army council headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a takeover in two years ago.

The military government had widespread approval when it took power, promising to address the protracted safety emergency triggered by a independence uprising in the northern region by the Tuareg population, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and French forces had been deployed in previously to deal with the increasing militant activity.

Both have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the ruling council has hired Russian mercenaries to address the insecurity.

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