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Mali has suspended educational facilities and colleges throughout the country due to a critical petrol shortage triggered by a embargo on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education stated on national broadcast that all academic facilities would be inactive until the ninth of November, clarifying that the transportation of employees and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He stated that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to resolve the situation so that academic sessions could restart on November 10th.

For weeks, the nation has been facing a energy deficit, particularly in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an jihadist network enforced a blockade by striking fuel trucks on major highways.

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

Lengthy waits have been snaking around fuel outlets in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now reportedly fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month assured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has continued.

Last week, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would depart Mali amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing security concerns.

It said that the energy interruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a military junta led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a coup in two years ago.

The junta had popular support when it assumed control, vowing to deal with the protracted safety emergency caused by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been sent in a decade ago to address the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have left since the junta took over, and the ruling council has contracted foreign fighters to combat the insecurity.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain outside government control.