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Mali has suspended educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a critical fuel scarcity caused by a blockade on fuel imports imposed by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister stated on public media that all education institutions would be inactive until the ninth of November, clarifying that the travel of employees and learners had been disrupted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the authorities were “making every effort” to alleviate the situation so that educational activities could continue on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a petrol crisis, particularly in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a embargo by striking transport vehicles on primary roads.

The country is without coastal access, so all energy resources are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Long queues have been winding around gas pumps in Bamako in recent weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The junta-led administration had previously promised residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has endured.

Recently, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and increasing security concerns.

It explained that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the supply of electricity and had the “ability to disturb” the broader protection environment in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in 2021.

The ruling council had popular support when it took power, vowing 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 international UN troops and European soldiers had been deployed in 2013 to address the increasing militant activity.

These forces have left since the military assumed power, and the current administration has hired foreign fighters to tackle the insecurity.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has persisted and extensive regions of the north and east of the nation remain beyond state authority.