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Mali has closed schools and universities countrywide due to a critical fuel scarcity caused by a restriction on energy resources imposed by jihadist fighters.

Top education official announced on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until the ninth of November, explaining that the transportation of employees and students had been impacted by the restrictions.

He asserted that the administration were “doing everything possible” to resolve the crisis so that educational activities could restart on November 10th.

For several weeks, the nation has been grappling with a energy deficit, especially in the capital Bamako, after insurgents from an jihadist network enforced a embargo by striking tankers on primary roads.

Mali is landlocked, so all energy resources are delivered by land routes from adjacent nations such as Senegal and the neighboring nation.

Long queues have been forming around petrol stations in the capital in the last several days, and the city's normally bustling streets have now reportedly become deserted.

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

Last week, the United States diplomatic office in the capital declared that secondary diplomatic employees and their families would leave Mali amid the intensifying energy crisis and escalating protection worries.

It noted that the fuel disruptions had disrupted the power distribution and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unforeseen manners.

Mali is presently governed by a army council headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who took control in a takeover in two years ago.

The military government had public backing when it assumed control, promising to deal with the ongoing instability prompted by a autonomy movement in the northern territories by ethnic Tuaregs, which was then co-opted by jihadist fighters.

The international UN troops and European soldiers had been deployed in 2013 to combat the growing rebellion.

The international troops have departed since the military assumed power, and the military government has employed Russian mercenaries to tackle the violence.

Nonetheless, the jihadist insurgency has endured and significant areas of the northern and eastern zones of the nation remain beyond state authority.