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The landlocked West African country has temporarily halted schools and colleges across the nation due to a severe petrol shortage resulting from a blockade on petroleum supplies enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official declared on state television that all academic facilities would stay shut until the ninth of November, explaining that the movement of employees and learners had been impacted by the restrictions.

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

For several weeks, Mali has been facing a petrol crisis, particularly in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a restriction by striking transport vehicles on primary roads.

The country is surrounded by land, so all fuel supplies are brought in by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Extended lines have been forming around fuel outlets in the main city in the last several days, and the city's typically busy streets have now reportedly become deserted.

The military government had earlier this month reassured residents that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has continued.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would leave the country amid the intensifying petrol scarcity and growing security concerns.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the overall security situation in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is currently ruled by a military junta led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a coup in recently.

The ruling council had public backing when it assumed control, committing to deal with the ongoing instability triggered by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by extremist groups.

The international UN troops and France's military had been deployed in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.

Both have left since the new administration came in, and the ruling council has employed private military contractors to tackle the insecurity.

However, the Islamist rebellion has continued and significant areas of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain not under administrative command.