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The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and colleges throughout the country due to a critical energy crisis triggered by a embargo on energy resources enforced by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister declared on national broadcast that all academic facilities would stay shut until the ninth of November, clarifying that the movement of personnel and students had been impacted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the authorities were “making every effort” to end the crisis so that academic sessions could resume on November 10th.

For several weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an jihadist network enforced a blockade by striking transport vehicles on key routes.

The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are transported by land routes from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been winding around petrol stations in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly become deserted.

The ruling military council had in recent days assured citizens that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has endured.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would leave the country amid the intensifying energy crisis and growing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a armed forces administration headed by General Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in recently.

The ruling council had public backing when it took power, promising to address the protracted safety emergency triggered by a independence uprising in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been sent in a decade ago to deal with the escalating insurgency.

Both have left since the new administration came in, and the ruling council has hired Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain beyond state authority.