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The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and universities across the nation due to a severe fuel scarcity resulting from a blockade on energy resources implemented by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister announced on public media that all education institutions would be inactive until the ninth of November, explaining that the transportation of staff and students had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He stated that the government officials were “making every effort” to end the situation so that academic sessions could resume on 10 November.

For several weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, especially in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a restriction by striking transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are delivered by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been snaking around gas pumps in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The military government had previously reassured the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has continued.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave Mali amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing security concerns.

It explained that the fuel disruptions had affected the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is now led by a military junta led by the military leader, who assumed authority in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The junta had public backing when it came to authority, committing to deal with the long-running security crisis triggered by a independence uprising in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been sent in previously to combat the growing rebellion.

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the military government has employed private military contractors to combat the violence.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the state remain beyond state authority.