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6,300 Schools Hit by Hoax Bomb Threats Across EuropeWorld
About 6,300 schools in Italy received emailed bomb threats on Wednesday, forcing hundreds to evacuate, as similar messages reached Britain and Ireland.
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Hundreds of schools across Italy were evacuated on Wednesday after emailed bomb threats were sent to about 6,300 institutions, in the latest wave of hoax messages targeting schools and infrastructure across Europe. Similar emails reached schools in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, though authorities there quickly assessed them as hoaxes and classes were largely undisturbed.
Italian police said hundreds of schools in the country were evacuated as a precaution after the messages arrived during the morning. A spokesperson for the Italian public education ministry told CNN that about 6,300 schools had received the emailed threat. Officials later said the incident was a suspected hoax, and no explosives or suspicious devices were found.
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Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said in a video statement that all of the threats had been deemed fake, with no concrete evidence of an attack. She did not rule out the possibility of such threats resurfacing. Italy’s education minister, Giuseppe Valditara, said the alerts were presumed to be hoaxes and expected the number of affected schools to rise as reports came in.
According to a copy of the message seen by Reuters, the email was signed by a purported leader who had also claimed responsibility for emailed bomb threats sent on Friday to newsrooms in Ireland and Bulgaria. The same purported author was linked to threats against flights in Europe earlier in the month. Authorities have not verified the identity of the sender.
In Northern Ireland, more than 300 schools received the threatening email, police said, adding that the message originated outside the United Kingdom and was being treated as a hoax. The Education Authority said the message resembled a hoax sent to schools last month and that it was unaware of any evidence of a credible threat.
Police in Scotland said threatening messages were sent to schools across the country, from Dumfries in the south to Aberdeenshire and Orkney in the north. The force said the messages were being treated as hoaxes and advised schools that the emails alone did not warrant evacuation, though some schools in Edinburgh were briefly evacuated as a precaution.
Police in the Republic of Ireland said a generic communication had been sent to a number of educational establishments. The Garda assessed the threat as not credible and said it was not advising any evacuations.
Wednesday’s incident was the third wave of bomb threats against Italian schools in a month, following messages received on October 19 and November 2, when about 280 schools received threatening messages, according to Italian media reports. It also came less than a week after more than 20 European commercial flights received fake bomb threats, forcing many to divert.
Authorities across Europe are treating the episode as part of a wider pattern of disruption targeting public institutions. Investigations were continuing, but officials stressed that students were safe and there was no danger to the public.
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