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Mali has closed educational facilities and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a critical petrol shortage resulting from a blockade on petroleum supplies implemented by militant groups.

Top education official stated on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the movement of personnel and students had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He stated that the administration were “doing everything possible” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could restart on the tenth of November.

For weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, notably in the capital Bamako, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a blockade by targeting transport vehicles on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all energy resources are delivered by road from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around fuel outlets in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The military government had in recent days assured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has persisted.

Last week, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would leave the country amid the intensifying energy crisis and growing safety issues.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

Mali is presently governed by a army council headed by the military leader, who took control in a coup in 2021.

The junta had popular support when it took power, promising to address the protracted safety emergency caused by a autonomy movement in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been sent in a decade ago to deal with the increasing militant activity.

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the military government has hired Russian mercenaries to address the instability.

Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain beyond state authority.