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Mali has closed educational facilities and higher learning institutions throughout the country due to a critical energy crisis triggered by a blockade on petroleum supplies enforced by jihadist fighters.

Top education official declared on state television that all academic facilities would remain closed until 9 November, clarifying that the travel of staff and learners had been impacted by the blockade.

He stated that the authorities were “making every effort” to alleviate the emergency so that educational activities could continue on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, notably in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a blockade by targeting tankers on key routes.

The country is surrounded by land, so all fuel supplies are transported by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been forming around petrol stations in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had in recent days assured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has persisted.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would leave Mali amid the worsening fuel shortage and growing protection worries.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by the military leader, who took control in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The junta had public backing when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the ongoing instability prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and French forces had been sent in previously to deal with the escalating insurgency.

These forces have left since the new administration came in, and the military government has employed Russian mercenaries to address the violence.

However, the Islamist rebellion has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain outside government control.