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Mali has suspended educational facilities and universities throughout the country due to a acute energy crisis caused by a blockade on fuel imports imposed by jihadist fighters.

Top education official declared on state television that all learning centers would be inactive until 9 November, noting that the travel of employees and learners had been disrupted by the blockade.

He asserted that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could resume on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on key routes.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all petroleum products are brought in by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around petrol stations in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month reassured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has endured.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and increasing safety issues.

It noted that the petroleum supply issues had affected the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

Mali is now led by a armed forces administration led by the military leader, who seized power in a takeover in 2021.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it came to authority, committing to tackle the long-running security crisis caused by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and France's military had been sent in 2013 to combat the escalating insurgency.

These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the current administration has contracted private military contractors to tackle the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain beyond state authority.