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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted educational facilities and colleges across the nation due to a severe petrol shortage triggered by a blockade on energy resources enforced by jihadist fighters.

Top education official stated on national broadcast that all academic facilities would be inactive until the ninth of November, explaining that the travel of employees and pupils had been impacted by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to resolve the situation so that classes could resume on November 10th.

For weeks, Mali has been facing a fuel shortage, especially in the main city, after armed groups from an jihadist network enforced a embargo by attacking tankers on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all petroleum products are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been forming around petrol stations in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month promised citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has persisted.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating energy crisis and increasing security concerns.

It explained that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

Mali is currently ruled by a army council headed by General Goïta, who assumed authority in a coup in recently.

The military government had widespread approval when it took power, vowing to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by a independence uprising in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and France's military had been deployed in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.

The international troops have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the current administration has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the insecurity.

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