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Mali has suspended schools and universities throughout the country due to a acute fuel scarcity triggered by a embargo on energy resources enforced by militant groups.

Top education official announced on public media that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the travel of staff and learners had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He stated that the authorities were “making every effort” to alleviate the emergency so that educational activities could continue on the tenth of November.

For weeks, the nation has been facing a energy deficit, especially in the administrative center, after militants from an jihadist network enforced a embargo by targeting fuel trucks on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all petroleum products are brought in by land routes from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Long queues have been snaking around gas pumps in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently become deserted.

The military government had earlier this month assured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has continued.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would leave Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and escalating protection worries.

It noted that the energy interruptions had disrupted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is now led by a military junta headed by General Goïta, who took control in a takeover in 2021.

The military government had public backing when it took power, promising to deal with the long-running security crisis caused by a independence uprising in the northern region by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been stationed in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.

Both have left since the new administration came in, and the military government has contracted Russian mercenaries to combat the insecurity.

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