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Mali has closed educational facilities and universities countrywide due to a acute fuel scarcity caused by a restriction on fuel imports enforced by Islamist insurgents.

Minister of Education announced on state television that all academic facilities would be inactive until November 9th, noting that the travel of staff and students had been affected by the blockade.

He emphasized that the government officials were “doing everything possible” to alleviate the emergency so that educational activities could restart on the tenth of November.

For a number of weeks, Mali has been experiencing a fuel shortage, notably in the administrative center, after insurgents from an al-Qaeda affiliate enforced a blockade by striking transport vehicles on primary roads.

Mali is without coastal access, so all fuel supplies are transported by road from bordering countries such as Senegal and Ivory Coast.

Extended lines have been winding around fuel outlets in the main city in the past few weeks, and the city's normally bustling streets have now apparently fallen quiet.

The military government had in recent days reassured citizens that it was only a short-term problem, but the emergency has continued.

Last week, the American diplomatic mission in Bamako declared that non-critical embassy personnel and their dependents would depart Mali amid the intensifying energy crisis and increasing protection worries.

It said that the fuel disruptions had affected the supply of electricity and had the “capacity to affect” the general safety conditions in unexpected forms.

Mali is currently ruled by a armed forces administration headed by Gen Assimi Goïta, who seized power in a military overthrow in two years ago.

The military government had widespread approval when it came to authority, promising to address the protracted safety emergency triggered by a independence uprising in the north by Tuareg communities, which was then taken over by Islamist militants.

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

The international troops have withdrawn since the military assumed power, and the current administration has hired private military contractors to address the instability.

However, the Islamist rebellion has endured and large parts of the northern and eastern territories of the country remain not under administrative command.