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Mali has suspended schools and universities throughout the country due to a severe petrol shortage caused by a embargo on petroleum supplies imposed by jihadist fighters.

Top education official declared on state television that all learning centers would stay shut until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of personnel and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He asserted that the authorities were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the crisis so that classes could restart on November 10th.

For several weeks, the nation has been grappling with a energy deficit, especially in the main city, after militants from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a embargo by attacking transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is landlocked, so all fuel supplies are transported by land routes from bordering countries such as Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire.

Extended lines have been forming around fuel outlets in the main city in the last several days, and the city's usually crowded streets have now reportedly grown silent.

The ruling military council had in recent days assured residents that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has persisted.

Last week, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their relatives would leave the country amid the worsening energy crisis and increasing security concerns.

It explained that the fuel disruptions had affected the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unpredictable ways.

Mali is currently ruled by a military junta led by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a coup in two years ago.

The military government had popular support when it took power, promising to address the long-running security crisis prompted by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by jihadist fighters.

The UN peacekeeping mission and French forces had been stationed in a decade ago to combat the increasing militant activity.

Both have departed since the junta took over, and the current administration has hired foreign fighters to address the instability.

However, the jihadist insurgency has endured and significant areas of the north and east of the nation remain outside government control.