The United States and United Kingdom are withdrawing non-essential staff from their embassies in Mali, where a fuel blockade waged by terrorists has upturned daily life.

Malian authorities have been battling various terrorist groups, particularly the Al-Qaeda-linked JNIM group, which is carrying out the blockade.

The group has targeted fuel tankers, particularly those coming from Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire, through which the majority of Mali's imported goods transit, since September.

The US State Department on Thursday ordered the American embassy's "non-emergency employees and their family members to leave Mali due to safety risks".

The move came two days after the US embassy urged all citizens in the country to "depart immediately" on commercial aircraft.

The British foreign office also on Thursday said that "non-essential British Embassy staff have been temporarily withdrawn from Bamako".

It additionally warned its citizens to "leave immediately by commercial flight if you judge it safe to do so".

Italy, Germany, Canada and a handful of other countries have also told their nationals to leave Mali as swiftly as possible.

JNIM has recently appeared to be seeking to isolate Bamako by increasing operations on the surrounding roads.

Many tankers have been set on fire, while drivers and soldiers have been killed or kidnapped in terrorist ambushes.

The blockade has hit the capital particularly hard the past two weeks, with the landlocked Sahel nation's economy grinding to a halt.