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Mali has temporarily halted schools and colleges across the nation due to a critical petrol shortage triggered by a blockade on petroleum supplies imposed by jihadist fighters.

The Education Minister announced on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of employees and students had been affected by the restrictions.

He emphasized that the administration were “doing everything possible” to resolve the emergency so that academic sessions could continue on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, notably in the main city, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a embargo by striking fuel trucks on major highways.

Mali is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are transported by road from bordering countries such as its western neighbor and Côte d'Ivoire.

Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in Bamako in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The ruling military council had previously assured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the crisis has persisted.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in the capital announced that non-essential diplomatic staff and their relatives would evacuate the country amid the intensifying fuel shortage and increasing security concerns.

It noted that the petroleum supply issues had affected the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

Mali is presently governed by a military junta led by the military leader, who assumed authority in a military overthrow in recently.

The junta had popular support when it came to authority, vowing to deal with the long-running security crisis prompted by a independence uprising in the northern region by Tuareg communities, which was then taken over by Islamist militants.

The United Nations stabilization force and European soldiers had been deployed in a decade ago to deal with the escalating insurgency.

The international troops have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the military government has employed foreign fighters to combat the insecurity.

Nonetheless, the militant uprising has endured and extensive regions of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain outside government control.