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The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a severe fuel scarcity caused by a embargo on fuel imports imposed by jihadist fighters.

Minister of Education stated on national broadcast that all education institutions would be inactive until 9 November, explaining that the travel of staff and pupils had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to alleviate the situation so that classes could continue on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been grappling with a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a embargo by striking fuel trucks on major highways.

The country is landlocked, so all petroleum products are transported by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Extended lines have been forming around petrol stations in the capital in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently become deserted.

The military government had previously promised citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has continued.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and escalating safety issues.

It explained that the fuel disruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

Mali is now led by a army council headed by General Goïta, who took control in a coup in 2021.

The junta had popular support when it took power, committing to address the ongoing instability caused by a autonomy movement in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been deployed in a decade ago to combat the escalating insurgency.

Both have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the current administration has employed Russian mercenaries to address the instability.

Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has endured and significant areas of the northern and eastern territories of the state remain beyond state authority.