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Mali has suspended schools and colleges throughout the country due to a severe petrol shortage triggered by a embargo on fuel imports implemented by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official declared on public media that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, explaining that the transportation of personnel and pupils had been affected by the imposed limitations.

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

For weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, particularly in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate initiated a restriction by targeting transport vehicles on key routes.

The country is surrounded by land, so all fuel supplies are delivered by road from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Extended lines have been forming around fuel outlets in the capital in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The junta-led administration had previously assured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has continued.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would evacuate the country amid the worsening petrol scarcity and increasing security concerns.

It said that the energy interruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “potential to disrupt” the overall security situation in unpredictable ways.

The West African nation is presently governed by a armed forces administration under the leadership of Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a takeover in two years ago.

The junta had widespread approval when it assumed control, vowing to address the ongoing instability prompted by a independence uprising 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 deployed in a decade ago to combat the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have departed since the military assumed power, and the ruling council has hired foreign fighters to address the insecurity.

However, the Islamist rebellion has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain not under administrative command.