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Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and universities across the nation due to a critical energy crisis triggered by a blockade on petroleum supplies enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Top education official announced on national broadcast that all education institutions would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the travel of staff and pupils had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He asserted that the administration were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the crisis so that classes could restart on 10 November.

For several weeks, Mali has been experiencing a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a blockade by targeting tankers on primary roads.

Mali is without coastal access, so all energy resources are delivered by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Long queues have been snaking around gas pumps in the main city in recent weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The military government had earlier this month assured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has persisted.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their families would leave Mali amid the worsening energy crisis and increasing safety issues.

It explained that the energy interruptions had impacted the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

Mali is presently governed by a armed forces administration headed by the military leader, who assumed authority in a coup in 2021.

The military government had public backing when it assumed control, vowing to address the long-running security crisis prompted by a separatist rebellion in the northern region by the Tuareg population, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The UN peacekeeping mission and France's military had been stationed in a decade ago to deal with the escalating insurgency.

Both have departed since the new administration came in, and the current administration has hired Russian mercenaries to combat the instability.

Nevertheless, the Islamist rebellion has endured and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the state remain outside government control.