Schools were evacuated across Italy Wednesday following a series of hoax bomb threats, but Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said there was no “concrete danger.”
Similar hoax threats were reported in schools in Britain and Ireland, which prompted some evacuations in Scotland.
Meloni called a government meeting for Wednesday with security and intelligence chiefs over the threats. Italian news agency ANSA, citing the education ministry, said the threats had been sent to about 6,000 schools.
It was unclear how many schools evacuated their students after receiving the threats.
Crowds of evacuated schoolchildren could be seen outside their schools in different parts of the country.
Some said they had had to evacuate quickly and left belongings inside that they could not recover before police checks.
“The principal came out into the courtyard and told us that an email had come in, a bomb threat, and right after that the building was evacuated,” Sofia De Ponte, a 19-year-old student at Rome’s Virgilio high school, told AFP.
De Ponte said the police had still not arrived because “there’s a long waiting list with all the schools.”
“We’re still here waiting,” said her classmate Elena Sicignano, 19.
Violetta Uboldi, an art teacher at Brera school in Milan, said students appeared happy to be evacuated.
“I think there was a cry of joy because school was over. That was the reaction,” she said.
But Angelica, a 16-year-old student at the school, said a teacher told her it was not a drill, “so we panicked a bit.”
Italian media reported that the bomb threat came in an email purportedly from a “Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan.”
“I have just left in your building, inside a plastic bag, a powerful explosive with remote detonation,” the email said.
‘Damage and disruption’
The government sought to play down the incident.
“At present, based on the checks carried out, no element has emerged that would suggest there is a concrete danger,” Meloni said in a Facebook post.
“The reports instead appear to be linked to a strategy aimed at generating alarm and concern, which is currently the subject of all the necessary in-depth investigations,” she said.
Antonello Giannelli, president of the ANP, an association of Italian school principals, said in a statement the threats were “clearly fake.”
But he added: “This episode shows how much irresponsibility, when combined with the extraordinary communicative power of the tools we have today, can cause damage and disruption on a large scale.”
“We hope that full light will quickly be shed on the origin of these threats and that those responsible will be identified,” he said.
The threats follow a series of hoax bomb alerts in recent weeks, including on flights across Europe, and cyberattacks on supermarket refrigeration systems in several European countries, including Italy.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Saturday he was being targeted by “cybercriminals” who were sharing his personal data online because of Italy’s support for Ukraine.
The attacks have raised concern in Europe about a possible escalation in hybrid warfare.
Police in Britain and Ireland said Wednesday they were investigating threatening emails sent to hundreds of schools. They dismissed the messages as hoaxes and urged teachers not to evacuate.
But The Herald, a Glasgow newspaper, reported that several Scottish schools had been evacuated and students sent home.
