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Mali has closed schools and colleges across the nation due to a critical petrol shortage caused by a embargo on petroleum supplies implemented by jihadist fighters.

Top education official stated on public media that all academic facilities would remain closed until 9 November, noting that the transportation of personnel and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He stated that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to end the crisis so that academic sessions could resume on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been facing a petrol crisis, especially in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda-linked organization imposed a restriction by targeting transport vehicles on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Extended lines have been winding around petrol stations in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's usually crowded streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The junta-led administration had earlier this month promised the public that it was only a temporary issue, but the emergency has endured.

In the past few days, the American diplomatic mission in the capital announced that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would leave Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and increasing safety issues.

It said that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the energy availability and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

Mali is now led by a armed forces administration under the leadership of General Goïta, who seized power in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The junta had popular support when it came to authority, vowing to tackle the long-running security crisis caused by a independence uprising in the north by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by extremist groups.

The international UN troops and French forces had been stationed in a decade ago to address the escalating insurgency.

These forces have departed since the new administration came in, and the military government has employed private military contractors to tackle the insecurity.

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