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

The Education Minister stated on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, clarifying that the movement of staff and students had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He stated that the administration were “doing everything possible” to end the crisis so that academic sessions could continue on 10 November.

For several weeks, the nation has been facing a petrol crisis, particularly in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a blockade by attacking tankers on major highways.

Mali is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are delivered by road from neighboring states such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

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

The military government had earlier this month promised citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has persisted.

Last week, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would leave Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and escalating safety issues.

It said that the fuel disruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in recently.

The ruling council had public backing when it took power, promising to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by a autonomy movement in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and France's military had been sent in a decade ago to deal with the increasing militant activity.

Both have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the current administration has employed private military contractors to combat the violence.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has endured and extensive regions of the north and east of the nation remain not under administrative command.