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The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a acute energy crisis caused by a restriction on fuel imports implemented by militant groups.

Minister of Education declared on national broadcast that all academic facilities would stay shut until the ninth of November, clarifying that the travel of personnel and students had been disrupted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to end the crisis so that classes could continue on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, notably in the capital Bamako, after militants from an jihadist network initiated a embargo by targeting transport vehicles on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are brought in by road from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been winding around petrol stations in the capital in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had in recent days promised residents that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has continued.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would evacuate the country amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing safety issues.

It noted that the energy interruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

Mali is presently governed by a army council under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in 2021.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, promising to tackle the protracted safety emergency prompted by a independence uprising in the northern territories by Tuareg communities, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been stationed in previously to combat the growing rebellion.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the military government has hired foreign fighters to combat the violence.

Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.