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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and colleges countrywide due to a critical fuel scarcity resulting from a embargo on petroleum supplies implemented by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education stated on state television that all education institutions would be inactive until 9 November, noting that the transportation of personnel and students had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He stated that the administration were “making every effort” to end the emergency so that classes could restart on November 10th.

For several weeks, Mali has been facing a petrol crisis, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a embargo by targeting tankers on primary roads.

Mali is without coastal access, so all petroleum products are delivered by road from neighboring states such as its western neighbor and Ivory Coast.

Long queues have been snaking around petrol stations in the capital in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly become deserted.

The ruling military council had previously assured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has persisted.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital stated that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would leave Mali amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

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

Mali is presently governed by a military junta led by General Goïta, who took control in a military overthrow in 2021.

The military government had widespread approval when it came to authority, promising to address the ongoing instability caused by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The UN peacekeeping mission and European soldiers had been deployed in a decade ago to address the escalating insurgency.

Both have left since the junta took over, and the military government has hired private military contractors to address the violence.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and extensive regions of the north and east of the nation remain beyond state authority.