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The landlocked West African country has closed schools and higher learning institutions across the nation due to a critical energy crisis triggered by a blockade on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education declared on state television that all education institutions would be inactive until the ninth of November, noting that the transportation of personnel and students had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

He stated that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to end the situation so that educational activities could resume on 10 November.

For several weeks, the nation has been experiencing a petrol crisis, particularly in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by targeting tankers on major highways.

The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are brought in by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been snaking around gas pumps in the capital in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had previously promised residents that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has continued.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and growing security concerns.

It noted that the energy interruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by General Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in recently.

The junta had public backing when it assumed control, promising to address the protracted safety emergency prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by Islamist militants.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been stationed in 2013 to deal with the escalating insurgency.

Both have departed since the military assumed power, and the ruling council has employed Russian mercenaries to combat the insecurity.

However, the militant uprising has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain not under administrative command.