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Mali has temporarily halted educational facilities and colleges countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage caused by a blockade on energy resources implemented by Islamist insurgents.

The Education Minister declared on national broadcast that all learning centers would remain closed until the ninth of November, clarifying that the transportation of personnel and pupils had been impacted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the administration were “doing everything possible” to end the emergency so that classes could resume on 10 November.

For several weeks, Mali has been grappling with a fuel shortage, notably in the main city, after armed groups from an jihadist network initiated a blockade by attacking fuel trucks on major highways.

The country is surrounded by land, so all energy resources are delivered by road from neighboring states such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Lengthy waits have been forming around fuel outlets in Bamako in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now allegedly grown silent.

The military government had earlier this month reassured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the situation has endured.

Last week, the US Embassy in the capital stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their families would evacuate the country amid the intensifying energy crisis and growing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “ability to disturb” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

Mali is presently governed by a army council led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who assumed authority in a takeover in recently.

The junta had popular support when it came to authority, promising to tackle the long-running security crisis triggered by a independence uprising in the northern region by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by Islamist militants.

The international UN troops and French forces had been deployed in previously to deal with the escalating insurgency.

These forces have left since the new administration came in, and the ruling council has hired foreign fighters to address the insecurity.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has persisted and significant areas of the north and east of the state remain outside government control.