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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted educational facilities and colleges countrywide due to a severe energy crisis caused by a embargo on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister stated on public media that all learning centers would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the travel of personnel and students had been affected by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the administration were “making every effort” to resolve the situation so that educational activities could resume on the tenth of November.

For weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, notably in the main city, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a embargo by striking transport vehicles on key routes.

The country is surrounded by land, so all petroleum products are delivered by land routes from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month assured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has persisted.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and escalating safety issues.

It explained that the energy interruptions had impacted the power distribution and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a military junta under the leadership of the military leader, who assumed authority in a takeover in recently.

The junta had popular support when it took power, vowing to tackle the ongoing instability caused by a autonomy movement in the northern region by Tuareg communities, which was then taken over by extremist groups.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been deployed in 2013 to deal with the increasing militant activity.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the military government has contracted private military contractors to address the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has persisted and extensive regions of the north and east of the nation remain not under administrative command.