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The landlocked West African country has closed schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage triggered by a restriction on energy resources imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on national broadcast that all academic facilities would be inactive until the ninth of November, explaining that the travel of personnel and pupils had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

He emphasized that the administration were “making every effort” to alleviate the crisis so that classes could resume on November 10th.

For weeks, the nation has been grappling with a petrol crisis, especially in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a restriction by striking tankers on primary roads.

The country is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are transported by truck from neighboring states such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Extended lines have been snaking around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month promised residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has persisted.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would depart the country amid the worsening energy crisis and growing security concerns.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had impacted the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

Mali is presently governed by a military junta led by the military leader, who seized power in a takeover in 2021.

The junta had public backing when it took power, promising to tackle the ongoing instability caused by a autonomy movement in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by extremist groups.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been stationed in a decade ago to address the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have departed since the military assumed power, and the ruling council has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the instability.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain outside government control.