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Mali has closed schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a acute petrol shortage resulting from a restriction on energy resources enforced by jihadist fighters.

Minister of Education announced on state television that all learning centers would be inactive until 9 November, clarifying that the movement of personnel and students had been disrupted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the administration were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the crisis so that classes could resume on November 10th.

For weeks, the nation has been grappling with a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after militants from an jihadist network initiated a restriction by striking fuel trucks on primary roads.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are transported by road from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly fallen quiet.

The military government had earlier this month reassured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has persisted.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would leave the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and increasing safety issues.

It noted that the energy interruptions had impacted the supply of electricity and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a army council under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in recently.

The junta had public backing when it assumed control, vowing to tackle the ongoing instability triggered by a autonomy movement in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and French forces had been stationed in a decade ago to address the increasing militant activity.

These forces have departed since the new administration came in, and the military government has hired foreign fighters to combat the insecurity.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain not under administrative command.