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The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and universities throughout the country due to a severe energy crisis resulting from a blockade on petroleum supplies enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on national broadcast that all education institutions would be inactive until the ninth of November, clarifying that the movement of personnel and learners had been affected by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the government officials were “making every effort” to end the crisis so that educational activities could restart on November 10th.

For weeks, the nation has been facing a petrol crisis, especially in the capital Bamako, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a blockade by targeting fuel trucks on key routes.

The country is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are transported by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around gas pumps in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had previously promised residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has persisted.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and escalating safety issues.

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

Mali is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by the military leader, who took control in a coup in two years ago.

The junta had widespread approval when it assumed control, vowing to deal with the long-running security crisis triggered by a separatist rebellion in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been stationed in previously to deal with the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the military government has hired foreign fighters to address the instability.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain beyond state authority.