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The landlocked West African country has closed schools and universities countrywide due to a severe fuel scarcity caused by a blockade on energy resources imposed by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister stated on public media that all education institutions would stay shut until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of personnel and learners had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

He stated that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to resolve the emergency so that academic sessions could restart on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been grappling with a energy deficit, especially in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a embargo by striking tankers on key routes.

Mali is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are transported by road from neighboring states such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Long queues have been forming around gas pumps in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month reassured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.

Last week, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and growing security concerns.

It noted that the energy interruptions had affected 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 the military leader, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

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

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been deployed in previously to deal with the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the ruling council has hired private military contractors to tackle the instability.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain not under administrative command.