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Mali has suspended educational facilities and universities throughout the country due to a severe petrol shortage caused by a embargo on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on public media that all learning centers would be inactive until 9 November, clarifying that the travel of employees and pupils had been impacted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the emergency so that academic sessions could continue on 10 November.

For a number of weeks, the nation has been facing a petrol crisis, particularly in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an jihadist network initiated a embargo by striking transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all petroleum products are transported by truck from bordering countries such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been winding around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently become deserted.

The junta-led administration had in recent days reassured the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the crisis has continued.

Last week, the United States diplomatic office in the capital announced that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would evacuate the country amid the deteriorating fuel shortage and growing safety issues.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the broader protection environment in unforeseen manners.

Mali is now led by a army council led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a coup in two years ago.

The junta had popular support when it assumed control, promising to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The United Nations stabilization force and French forces had been stationed in previously to combat the escalating insurgency.

These forces have left since the military assumed power, and the current administration has employed private military contractors to address the violence.

However, the Islamist rebellion has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain not under administrative command.