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Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and higher learning institutions countrywide due to a critical energy crisis caused by a embargo on fuel imports implemented by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official declared on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, clarifying that the transportation of staff and learners had been impacted by the imposed limitations.

He emphasized that the administration were “making every effort” to end the crisis so that educational activities could restart on November 10th.

For weeks, the nation has been experiencing a fuel shortage, notably in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a blockade by attacking transport vehicles on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are brought in by land routes from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Long queues have been winding around fuel outlets in the capital in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently become deserted.

The junta-led administration had previously reassured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has endured.

Recently, the US Embassy in the capital announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would evacuate the country amid the worsening energy crisis and increasing protection worries.

It said that the energy interruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unpredictable ways.

Mali is now led by a army council led by the military leader, who took control in a coup in 2021.

The military government had popular support when it came to authority, committing to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and France's military had been stationed in a decade ago to address the increasing militant activity.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the military government has contracted private military contractors to combat the instability.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain not under administrative command.