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The landlocked West African country has closed schools and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a acute fuel scarcity triggered by a restriction on petroleum supplies enforced by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister declared on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until November 9th, clarifying that the movement of employees and students had been disrupted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to end the situation so that educational activities could resume on November 10th.

For weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a restriction by attacking tankers on key routes.

The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are brought in by truck from bordering countries such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Long queues have been snaking around petrol stations in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly become deserted.

The ruling military council had previously assured the public that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has endured.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would leave the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and escalating safety issues.

It explained that the fuel disruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

Mali is now led by a armed forces administration headed by the military leader, who took control in a takeover in two years ago.

The junta had public backing when it took power, vowing to deal with the long-running security crisis triggered by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

The international UN troops and French forces had been deployed in previously to deal with the increasing militant activity.

These forces have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the current administration has hired foreign fighters to combat the violence.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the state remain not under administrative command.