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Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions across the nation due to a severe petrol shortage resulting from a restriction on petroleum supplies enforced by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister declared on national broadcast that all academic facilities would remain closed until the ninth of November, noting that the travel of personnel and pupils had been impacted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to alleviate the situation so that academic sessions could resume on 10 November.

For weeks, the nation has been grappling with a fuel shortage, notably in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a embargo by striking transport vehicles on primary roads.

The country is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by land routes from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been forming around fuel outlets in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now reportedly become deserted.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has continued.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and increasing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a armed forces administration under the leadership of General Goïta, who took control in a takeover in two years ago.

The military government had popular support when it assumed control, promising to address the protracted safety emergency prompted by a independence uprising in the north by Tuareg communities, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been sent in previously to combat the growing rebellion.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the ruling council has employed foreign fighters to combat the instability.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has continued and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain beyond state authority.