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Mali has suspended educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a acute fuel scarcity resulting from a blockade on energy resources imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official announced on public media that all learning centers would stay shut until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of employees and students had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the emergency so that classes could resume on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, Mali has been facing a fuel shortage, particularly in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a embargo by targeting fuel trucks on primary roads.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all petroleum products are transported by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been snaking around petrol stations in the capital in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had in recent days assured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the situation has persisted.

Last week, the United States diplomatic office in the capital announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would leave Mali amid the worsening petrol scarcity and growing safety issues.

It explained that the fuel disruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a army council under the leadership of the military leader, who took control in a coup in two years ago.

The junta had widespread approval when it assumed control, vowing to address the long-running security crisis triggered by a separatist rebellion in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been sent in a decade ago to combat the growing rebellion.

These forces have departed since the junta took over, and the military government has contracted foreign fighters to tackle the violence.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the state remain beyond state authority.