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The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and colleges across the nation due to a severe petrol shortage resulting from a restriction on energy resources enforced by militant groups.

The Education Minister announced on state television that all learning centers would stay shut until 9 November, clarifying that the travel of staff and students had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

He emphasized that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the emergency so that classes could restart on 10 November.

For several weeks, the nation has been experiencing a energy deficit, particularly in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a embargo by targeting fuel trucks on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are delivered by land routes from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Extended lines have been forming around fuel outlets in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The ruling military council had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has continued.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in the capital announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would depart the country amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and increasing protection worries.

It said that the energy interruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a armed forces administration under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a coup in two years ago.

The junta had popular support when it assumed control, vowing to deal with the long-running security crisis triggered by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been deployed in 2013 to combat the increasing militant activity.

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

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has endured and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain outside government control.