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Mali has closed educational facilities and universities countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage triggered by a restriction on petroleum supplies imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on public media that all learning centers would be inactive until the ninth of November, clarifying that the travel of staff and students had been affected by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to alleviate the emergency so that academic sessions could continue on 10 November.

For weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, particularly in the capital Bamako, after militants from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a embargo by targeting transport vehicles on major highways.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are transported by truck from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Long queues have been forming around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had in recent days reassured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has persisted.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would evacuate Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and growing security concerns.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

Mali is currently ruled by a military junta headed by General Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the protracted safety emergency triggered by a separatist rebellion in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

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

Both have left since the new administration came in, and the current administration has employed private military contractors to address the violence.

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