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Mali has temporarily halted schools and colleges countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage caused by a embargo on petroleum supplies implemented by militant groups.

The Education Minister declared on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until 9 November, explaining that the transportation of staff and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He emphasized that the administration were “working tirelessly” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could restart on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a petrol crisis, notably in the administrative center, after armed groups from an jihadist network imposed a blockade by targeting fuel trucks on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all petroleum products are brought in by road from neighboring states such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

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

The junta-led administration had in recent days assured the public that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has endured.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would depart the country amid the deteriorating energy crisis and increasing safety issues.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is now led by a armed forces administration under the leadership of General Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

The ruling council had public backing when it came to authority, promising to address the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been sent in previously to deal with the escalating insurgency.

These forces have left since the junta took over, and the military government has employed private military contractors to address the violence.

However, the jihadist insurgency has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain outside government control.