MILAN (AP) — Italian authorities evacuated hundreds of schools Wednesday after an emailed bomb threat, the latest in a series of disruptions affecting European institutions following recent hoaxes aimed at airlines and broadcasters.
Schools in Ireland, Scotland and Northern Ireland received similar threats, but no evacuations were reported.
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Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said there was no indication of any “concrete danger” to schools and that the threats appeared aimed at “generating alarm and concern.” She said investigations were underway and that she had called a meeting of ministers for later Wednesday.
The anonymous email also threatened Meloni, according to copies obtained by Italian media, including the LaPresse news agency. She did not address the personal threat in her statement, and her office had no immediate comment.
The email purported to come from the leader of an otherwise unknown group with an anti-woman name and contained particularly violent threats. It was signed with the same Russian name used in last week’s threats against European broadcasters.
Authorities have not attributed the threats to any group or state, and no evidence has emerged linking the hoaxes to a government.
Police in Northern Ireland said they were conducting “urgent inquiries” after a threatening email was sent to hundreds of schools. Police in Scotland said they were treating similar messages as hoaxes and were not requiring schools to evacuate.
“Our assessment remains that they do not represent a credible threat,” Police Scotland said.
Police in Ireland also said they were aware of a “generic communication” sent to several educational institutions.
Italian Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara told reporters that 312 schools had been evacuated after receiving email threats.
“These are very delicate considerations, because there is always the risk that there is someone else behind the madman,” he said. “Given that so many schools are involved, the real risk is almost non-existent.”
At Rome’s Mamiani high school, students poured into the streets, mistaking the alarm for the recess bell. They learned of the bomb threat only after they were outside.
“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.
Bomb threats targeted dozens of flights across Europe last week, following a string of hoaxes that forced flight diversions and left airlines scrambling to keep passengers safe and minimize disruption.
False bomb threats are relatively common, but so many in such a short period are unusual. No suspicious items were found and no one was injured. Still, the threats raised concerns because they followed other disruptions across Europe, including attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems and drone incursions.
Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said the emailed threats were aimed at “sowing terror, or creating concern.”
“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,” Crosetto told reporters at an event Wednesday.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Saturday that his personal data had been leaked to the dark web, an encrypted part of the internet. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni blamed pro-Russian hackers.
The company overseeing construction of the Brenner Base Tunnel, which will connect Austria and Italy, also said over the weekend that it had been hacked last month.
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Pan Pylas in London, Trisha Thomas and Giulia Arbarello in Rome contributed.
