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The landlocked West African country has suspended educational facilities and universities across the nation due to a acute fuel scarcity triggered by a blockade on fuel imports imposed by militant groups.

Top education official announced on national broadcast that all academic facilities would be inactive until 9 November, clarifying that the travel of staff and students had been affected by the imposed limitations.

He emphasized that the administration were “working tirelessly” to end the emergency so that educational activities could resume on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a petrol crisis, especially in the administrative center, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a blockade by targeting tankers on primary roads.

The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are brought in by land routes from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently become deserted.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month assured citizens that it was only a passing concern, but the emergency has persisted.

Last week, the US Embassy in Bamako declared that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would evacuate Mali amid the intensifying fuel shortage and growing security concerns.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had affected the energy availability and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is now led by a army council led by the military leader, who took control in a coup in recently.

The junta had widespread approval when it assumed control, promising to address the long-running security crisis caused by a autonomy movement in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then taken over by jihadist fighters.

The UN peacekeeping mission and France's military had been deployed in 2013 to deal with the growing rebellion.

Both have departed since the junta took over, and the current administration has contracted Russian mercenaries to tackle the insecurity.

Nevertheless, the militant uprising has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain not under administrative command.