Italian authorities evacuated hundreds of schools on Wednesday after more than 6,300 institutions received an emailed bomb threat. Similar threats were sent to schools in Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but no evacuations were reported there.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said there was no indication of any “concrete danger” and that the threats appeared intended to generate “alarm and concern”. The incident was the latest in a series of disruptions affecting European institutions after recent hoaxes targeting airlines and broadcasters.
Italy’s Education Ministry said more than 6,300 schools had received the email, although it was not immediately clear how many had been evacuated. Meloni said investigations were under way and that she had called a meeting of ministers for later on Wednesday.
Copies of the anonymous email obtained by Italian media, including the LaPresse news agency, showed that it also contained a threat against Meloni. She did not address the personal threat in her statement, and her office had no immediate comment.
The email claimed to be from the leader of an otherwise unknown group with an anti-woman name and contained particularly violent threats. It was signed using the same Russian name that appeared in threats sent to European broadcasters last week.
Authorities have not attributed the threats to any group or country, and no evidence has emerged linking the hoaxes to a government.
Police in Northern Ireland said they were carrying out “urgent inquiries” after a threatening email was sent to hundreds of schools. Police in Scotland said they were treating similar messages as hoaxes and had not asked schools to evacuate.
“Our assessment remains that they do not represent a credible threat,” Police Scotland said. Police in Ireland said they were also aware of a “generic communication” sent to several educational institutions.
Italian Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said authorities still had to handle the threats cautiously. “These are very delicate considerations, because there is always the risk that there is someone else behind the madman,” he told reporters. “Given that so many schools are involved, the real risk is almost non-existent.”
At Mamiani high school in Rome, students went out into the streets after mistaking the alarm for the recess bell. They learnt about the bomb threat only after leaving the building.
“They are saying it was a bomb alert because an email arrived from Russian hackers in which they said they would have killed everyone. It was pretty violent,” said Anita Bartocci, an 18-year-old student.
The school threats followed bomb threats targeting dozens of flights across Europe last week. A series of hoaxes forced flight diversions and left airlines trying to protect passengers and minimise disruption.
False bomb threats are relatively common, but authorities said it was unusual to receive so many within such a short period. No suspicious items were found and no one was injured. The threats, however, raised concerns as they followed other disruptions in Europe, including attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems and drone incursions.
Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said the emailed threats were aimed at “sowing terror, or creating concern”. He added: “It’s too easy. Any one of us can use the available means and instruments to send an email to a school, a daycare, an airline, saying that there’s a bomb.”
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Saturday that his personal data had been leaked on the dark web, an encrypted part of the internet. Meloni blamed pro-Russian hackers. The company overseeing the construction of the Brenner Base Tunnel, which will connect Austria and Italy, also said over the weekend that it had been hacked last month.
Investigations into the school threats are continuing, with Italian authorities saying there was no sign of a concrete danger, while police elsewhere assessed similar messages as not credible.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
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