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The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and universities countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage resulting from a restriction on petroleum supplies imposed by militant groups.

The Education Minister announced on public media that all academic facilities would be inactive until November 9th, noting that the travel of personnel and learners had been affected by the restrictions.

He asserted that the administration were “making every effort” to resolve the crisis so that academic sessions could resume on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, the nation has been grappling with a fuel shortage, particularly in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a embargo by attacking tankers on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all energy resources are brought in by land routes from neighboring states such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had previously assured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has endured.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would evacuate Mali amid the worsening energy crisis and growing protection worries.

It explained that the energy interruptions had impacted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration led by General Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in two years ago.

The junta had popular support when it took power, committing to tackle the long-running security crisis triggered by a autonomy movement in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been sent in 2013 to combat the increasing militant activity.

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the military government has hired Russian mercenaries to tackle the insecurity.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.