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Mali has temporarily halted schools and universities countrywide due to a severe energy crisis caused by a blockade on petroleum supplies implemented by militant groups.

Top education official announced on public media that all academic facilities would stay shut until 9 November, noting that the transportation of personnel and learners had been impacted by the blockade.

He emphasized that the government officials were “working tirelessly” to resolve the emergency so that academic sessions could continue on November 10th.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a petrol crisis, especially in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda-linked organization initiated a blockade by striking transport vehicles on key routes.

Mali is surrounded by land, so all fuel supplies are delivered by truck from adjacent nations such as its western neighbor and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been forming around gas pumps in the capital in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly fallen quiet.

The ruling military council had previously assured residents that it was only a temporary issue, but the situation has endured.

In the past few days, the US Embassy in Bamako stated that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart Mali amid the deteriorating energy crisis and growing protection worries.

It explained that the petroleum supply issues had disrupted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

The West African nation is now led by a armed forces administration led by General Goïta, who took control in a takeover in recently.

The military government had popular support when it came to authority, promising to tackle the long-running security crisis caused by a separatist rebellion in the northern territories by the Tuareg population, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

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

The international troops have left since the junta took over, and the current administration has contracted foreign fighters to combat the insecurity.

However, the militant uprising has continued and extensive regions of the north and east of the country remain beyond state authority.