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Mali has suspended schools and universities throughout the country due to a severe petrol shortage resulting from a restriction on fuel imports enforced by jihadist fighters.

Minister of Education announced on state television that all learning centers would stay shut until November 9th, noting that the transportation of personnel and students had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the administration were “making every effort” to alleviate the situation so that classes could restart on the tenth of November.

For weeks, Mali has been grappling with a energy deficit, particularly in the administrative center, after insurgents from an jihadist network enforced a embargo by attacking fuel trucks on primary roads.

Mali is landlocked, so all petroleum products are delivered by road from neighboring states such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Extended lines have been snaking around petrol stations in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The military government had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has endured.

Recently, the US Embassy in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would leave Mali amid the worsening energy crisis and escalating safety issues.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had impacted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the broader protection environment in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a military junta under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in 2021.

The junta had public backing when it assumed control, committing to deal with the long-running security crisis triggered by a autonomy movement in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been deployed in previously to address the increasing militant activity.

These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the military government has contracted foreign fighters to combat the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern zones of the country remain beyond state authority.