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The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a severe energy crisis caused by a blockade on energy resources imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official declared on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, noting that the transportation of employees and students had been affected by the restrictions.

He stated that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to end the situation so that academic sessions could continue on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, particularly in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a blockade by targeting fuel trucks on primary roads.

The country is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been winding around fuel outlets in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently become deserted.

The ruling military council had in recent days assured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has persisted.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

It said that the energy interruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

Mali is now led by a army council led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a takeover in recently.

The ruling council had popular support when it took power, promising to address the ongoing instability caused by a independence uprising in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and France's military had been stationed in 2013 to combat the escalating insurgency.

These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the military government has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the violence.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain beyond state authority.