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Mali has temporarily halted schools and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a critical fuel scarcity caused by a embargo on fuel imports imposed by militant groups.

The Education Minister announced on public media that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the transportation of employees and learners had been impacted by the restrictions.

He stated that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to end the situation so that classes could resume on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been experiencing a fuel shortage, particularly in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a restriction by targeting fuel trucks on key routes.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are transported by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been forming around petrol stations in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The military government had in recent days reassured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has endured.

Recently, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would leave the country amid the worsening petrol scarcity and growing safety issues.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is now led by a military junta headed by the military leader, who assumed authority in a military overthrow in recently.

The ruling council had widespread approval when it came to authority, promising to tackle the ongoing instability caused by a independence uprising in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been stationed in a decade ago to address the growing rebellion.

Both have departed since the junta took over, and the military government has employed foreign fighters to tackle the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and extensive regions of the north and east of the country remain not under administrative command.