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Mali has temporarily halted schools and higher learning institutions across the nation due to a severe energy crisis resulting from a embargo on fuel imports implemented by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister stated on public media that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, explaining that the transportation of employees and students had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the emergency so that classes could continue on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization enforced a restriction by attacking fuel trucks on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are delivered by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Long queues have been winding around gas pumps in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's typically busy streets have now apparently grown silent.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month promised citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has endured.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and growing safety issues.

It explained that the energy interruptions had impacted the power distribution and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

Mali is currently ruled by a army council under the leadership of General Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it assumed control, committing to tackle the protracted safety emergency caused by a autonomy movement in the northern region by Tuareg communities, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been stationed in 2013 to address the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have left since the military assumed power, and the military government has contracted Russian mercenaries to combat the insecurity.

However, the militant uprising has persisted and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.