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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a severe energy crisis resulting from a restriction on petroleum supplies implemented by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official stated on public media that all academic facilities would stay shut until the ninth of November, clarifying that the travel of personnel and pupils had been impacted by the blockade.

He asserted that the administration were “making every effort” to resolve the emergency so that educational activities could restart on the tenth of November.

For weeks, the nation has been grappling with a petrol crisis, notably in the capital Bamako, after militants from an jihadist network enforced a restriction by targeting fuel trucks on key routes.

The country is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by road from bordering countries such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been winding around petrol stations in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently become deserted.

The military government had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has endured.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart the country amid the worsening energy crisis and increasing safety issues.

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

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

The ruling council had widespread approval when it took power, promising to address the ongoing instability caused by a autonomy movement in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been deployed in previously to deal with the growing rebellion.

These forces have left since the new administration came in, and the ruling council has hired private military contractors to tackle the instability.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and significant areas of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain beyond state authority.