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Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and universities countrywide due to a critical energy crisis caused by a blockade on energy resources enforced by militant groups.

Top education official declared on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until November 9th, clarifying that the transportation of staff and students had been affected by the restrictions.

He asserted that the government officials were “making every effort” to resolve the emergency so that educational activities could continue on November 10th.

For weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, notably in the capital Bamako, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a embargo by attacking tankers on primary roads.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all fuel supplies are delivered by road from neighboring states such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in the main city in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has persisted.

Recently, the US Embassy in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave the country amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and increasing safety issues.

It noted that the petroleum supply issues had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

Mali is currently ruled by a army council headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a coup in 2021.

The military government had popular support when it took power, vowing to deal with the protracted safety emergency triggered by a independence uprising in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been stationed in 2013 to address the increasing militant activity.

The international troops have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the military government has hired Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain beyond state authority.