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Mali has suspended schools and universities countrywide due to a severe fuel scarcity triggered by a blockade on energy resources enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official declared on public media that all learning centers would remain closed until November 9th, clarifying that the travel of staff and learners had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the administration were “working tirelessly” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could resume on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, especially in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by striking fuel trucks on key routes.

Mali is without coastal access, so all energy resources are transported by land routes from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

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

The junta-led administration had previously promised residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has persisted.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in the capital stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would leave the country amid the intensifying energy crisis and increasing safety issues.

It explained that the energy interruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in two years ago.

The ruling council had popular support when it came to authority, promising to address the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been deployed in a decade ago to address the escalating insurgency.

These forces have withdrawn since the junta took over, and the military government has contracted private military contractors to combat the instability.

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