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The landlocked West African country has closed educational facilities and universities across the nation due to a severe energy crisis caused by a blockade on petroleum supplies implemented by militant groups.

The Education Minister declared on national broadcast that all learning centers would stay shut until 9 November, clarifying that the transportation of personnel and pupils had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to end the situation so that classes could restart on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a petrol crisis, particularly in the administrative center, after militants from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a restriction by attacking transport vehicles on key routes.

Mali is without coastal access, so all energy resources are brought in by road from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Extended lines have been snaking around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The military government had previously assured citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has persisted.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would leave Mali amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and increasing protection worries.

It noted that the energy interruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is presently governed by a military junta under the leadership of the military leader, who assumed authority in a military overthrow in recently.

The military government had public backing when it took power, promising to address the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and French forces had been deployed in 2013 to combat the increasing militant activity.

Both have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the current administration has employed private military contractors to tackle the violence.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and large parts of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain beyond state authority.