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Mali has closed educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a critical energy crisis triggered by a blockade on fuel imports imposed by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister declared on national broadcast that all academic facilities would stay shut until the ninth of November, explaining that the travel of personnel and learners had been impacted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the authorities were “making every effort” to resolve the emergency so that educational activities could restart on the tenth of November.

For weeks, the nation has been facing a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a embargo by targeting fuel trucks on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all petroleum products are transported by road from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been snaking around petrol stations in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The military government had previously assured citizens that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has persisted.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and growing protection worries.

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

Mali is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a military overthrow in recently.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, promising to address the long-running security crisis triggered by a independence uprising in the north by Tuareg communities, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

The UN peacekeeping mission and France's military had been deployed in 2013 to address the growing rebellion.

These forces have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the military government has contracted Russian mercenaries to combat the violence.

However, the Islamist rebellion has endured and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain beyond state authority.