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The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and universities countrywide due to a severe fuel scarcity caused by a restriction on fuel imports imposed by jihadist fighters.

Top education official announced on national broadcast that all education institutions would remain closed until the ninth of November, explaining that the transportation of personnel and pupils had been impacted by the blockade.

He asserted that the government officials were “making every effort” to end the situation so that classes could restart on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a energy deficit, notably in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a blockade by attacking tankers on primary roads.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by truck from bordering countries such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

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

The junta-led administration had previously reassured citizens that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has endured.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would depart Mali amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and growing security concerns.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had affected the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration headed by the military leader, who assumed authority in a takeover in two years ago.

The military government had public backing when it took power, committing to tackle the protracted safety emergency triggered by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and French forces had been deployed in a decade ago to combat the growing rebellion.

The international troops have left since the new administration came in, and the military government has hired private military contractors to tackle the violence.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain not under administrative command.