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Mali has temporarily halted schools and universities throughout the country due to a critical energy crisis caused by a embargo on energy resources imposed by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official stated on state television that all learning centers would stay shut until 9 November, clarifying that the movement of employees and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He stated that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the situation so that educational activities could resume on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been facing a energy deficit, especially in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a restriction by striking transport vehicles on major highways.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are transported by road from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

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 in recent days reassured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has endured.

Recently, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would evacuate the country amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and increasing protection worries.

It said that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

The West African nation is now led by a army council headed by General Goïta, who took control in a takeover in 2021.

The military government had popular support when it took power, promising to address the ongoing instability caused by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The international UN troops and French forces had been stationed in a decade ago to combat the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have left since the new administration came in, and the military government has employed Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

Nevertheless, the jihadist insurgency has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain beyond state authority.