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The landlocked West African country has suspended schools and colleges countrywide due to a severe petrol shortage caused by a blockade on energy resources imposed by jihadist fighters.

Top education official declared on public media that all education institutions would be inactive until the ninth of November, noting that the movement of employees and pupils had been affected by the blockade.

He stated that the authorities were “working tirelessly” to resolve the emergency so that classes could restart on 10 November.

For weeks, the nation has been experiencing a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after armed groups from an al-Qaeda affiliate imposed a blockade by attacking tankers on primary roads.

The country is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are transported by land routes from neighboring states such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

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

The military government had in recent days promised the public that it was only a passing concern, but the crisis has continued.

In the past few days, the United States diplomatic office in Bamako stated that non-essential diplomatic staff and their dependents would depart the country amid the worsening energy crisis and escalating security concerns.

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

The West African nation is currently ruled by a military junta led by General Goïta, who took control in a coup in two years ago.

The ruling council had public backing when it assumed control, vowing to tackle the long-running security crisis prompted by a independence uprising in the north by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then hijacked by Islamist militants.

The UN peacekeeping mission and France's military had been sent in 2013 to deal with the escalating insurgency.

Both have departed since the junta took over, and the ruling council has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the instability.

However, the militant uprising has persisted and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the nation remain not under administrative command.