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The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and colleges countrywide due to a critical petrol shortage caused by a blockade on petroleum supplies enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education stated on state television that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the transportation of employees and pupils had been disrupted by the imposed limitations.

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

For several weeks, the nation has been facing a petrol crisis, particularly in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a embargo by attacking transport vehicles on primary roads.

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

Lengthy waits have been forming around petrol stations in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had earlier this month reassured citizens that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has continued.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would leave Mali amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and increasing safety issues.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had affected the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a military junta led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The junta had popular support when it came to authority, promising to tackle the protracted safety emergency prompted by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.

The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been deployed in previously to address the growing rebellion.

These forces have withdrawn since the new administration came in, and the military government has hired Russian mercenaries to address the instability.

However, the jihadist insurgency has continued and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain not under administrative command.