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Mali has closed educational facilities and colleges across the nation due to a critical energy crisis caused by a blockade on energy resources enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until the ninth of November, explaining that the travel of personnel and students had been affected by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the crisis so that academic sessions could restart on the tenth of November.

For several weeks, Mali has been facing a fuel shortage, notably in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a embargo by attacking transport vehicles on key routes.

The country is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are brought in by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Long queues have been winding around petrol stations in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently grown silent.

The ruling military council had in recent days reassured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has endured.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital stated that secondary diplomatic employees and their relatives would depart the country amid the deteriorating petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

It said that the petroleum supply issues had affected the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the broader protection environment in unexpected forms.

Mali is currently ruled by a military junta under the leadership of the military leader, who seized power in a military overthrow in 2021.

The military government had public backing when it came to authority, promising to tackle the long-running security crisis prompted by a independence uprising in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been stationed in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.

Both have left since the new administration came in, and the current administration has hired Russian mercenaries to address the instability.

Nonetheless, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain not under administrative command.