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MILAN (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said law enforcement found no concrete threat during checks of thousands of school buildings that were evacuated 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.
“Whoever is sending them wants our fear, lost days, suspicion and chaos,” Meloni said in a video message, following a meeting with her Cabinet, secret services and cybersecurity experts. Italian law enforcement was working with its European counterparts to identify the source of the threats, she said.
The Italian Education Ministry said the email threat was received by over 6,300 schools, but it was not immediately known how many had been evacuated.
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 and contained particularly violent threats. It was signed with the same 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.
Threats reported in other countries
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.
Rome students learn of threat after evacuation
“These are very delicate considerations, because there is always the risk that there is someone else behind the madman,” Italian Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara told reporters. “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.
Hoax pattern emerges
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.
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