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The landlocked West African country has closed schools and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a critical petrol shortage caused by a embargo on petroleum supplies imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education declared on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until 9 November, noting that the travel of staff and students had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He stated that the administration were “making every effort” to end the situation so that classes could continue on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been facing a energy deficit, particularly in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by striking tankers on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are brought in by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been winding around gas pumps in the main city in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month 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 Bamako announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the worsening energy crisis and growing security concerns.

It noted that the energy interruptions had impacted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unexpected forms.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration headed by the military leader, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, committing to tackle the ongoing instability triggered by a separatist rebellion in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by extremist groups.

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

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the current administration has contracted foreign fighters to address the violence.

However, the Islamist rebellion has continued and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain outside government control.