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The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a acute fuel scarcity resulting from a restriction on petroleum supplies imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on state television that all education institutions would stay shut until November 9th, noting that the transportation of personnel and learners had been affected by the blockade.

He stated that the administration were “making every effort” to end the situation so that educational activities could continue on 10 November.

For several weeks, the nation has been experiencing a petrol crisis, notably in the administrative center, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a restriction by targeting fuel trucks on primary roads.

The country is landlocked, so all petroleum products are brought in by land routes from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been winding around fuel outlets in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had in recent days reassured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has continued.

Recently, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would depart Mali amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and escalating safety issues.

It said that the petroleum supply issues had impacted the power distribution and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

Mali is presently governed by a military junta under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it assumed control, committing to tackle the long-running security crisis prompted by a independence uprising in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by extremist groups.

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

The international troops have left since the new administration came in, and the military government has employed foreign fighters to tackle the violence.

However, the Islamist rebellion has continued and significant areas of the north and east of the country remain not under administrative command.