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Mali has closed educational facilities and universities across the nation due to a severe fuel scarcity caused by a restriction on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education stated on public media that all learning centers would stay shut until the ninth of November, explaining that the movement of personnel and pupils had been disrupted by the restrictions.

He stated that the government officials were “making every effort” to resolve the emergency so that academic sessions could resume on 10 November.

For several weeks, Mali has been experiencing a petrol crisis, particularly in the main city, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on major highways.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all fuel supplies are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been snaking around petrol stations in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently grown silent.

The ruling military council had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would evacuate Mali amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and escalating safety issues.

It said that the energy interruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unforeseen manners.

Mali is currently ruled by a military junta headed by the military leader, who took control in a takeover in 2021.

The junta had widespread approval when it assumed control, vowing to address the ongoing instability caused by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been sent in a decade ago to combat the escalating insurgency.

Both have departed since the junta took over, and the current administration has hired Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

However, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.