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The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and colleges throughout the country due to a severe energy crisis triggered by a restriction on petroleum supplies imposed by militant groups.

The Education Minister declared on public media that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, explaining that the movement of personnel and pupils had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He emphasized that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to resolve the crisis so that classes could resume on the tenth of November.

For weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, particularly in the main city, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a blockade by targeting transport vehicles on primary roads.

The country is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are brought in by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Extended lines have been winding around gas pumps in the capital 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 assured the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in the capital announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would evacuate Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and growing security concerns.

It said that the fuel disruptions had impacted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by the military leader, who took control in a takeover in 2021.

The junta had popular support when it assumed control, promising to tackle the protracted safety emergency caused by a independence uprising in the northern region by the Tuareg population, 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.

These forces have left since the junta took over, and the military government has contracted private military contractors to combat the insecurity.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain outside government control.