Italy‘s Premier Giorgia Meloni said there was no indication of any “concrete danger” to schools nationwide on Wednesday after hundreds of educational institutions in the country were evacuated following an emailed bomb threat, the latest in a slew of disruptive hoaxes aimed at European airlines, media outlets and institutions.
Schools in Northern Ireland and Scotland also received similar threats, but no evacuations were reported, according to the Associated Press.
The Italian Education Ministry said the threat was emailed to over 6,300 schools.
In a video message shared on X, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni said the government would not let “an anonymous email decide our children’s school calendar.”
“Whoever did this wanted a nation that was paralyzed and afraid. They will find a nation that wakes up tomorrow, takes its children to school, and goes to work. That is the response, and it is the strongest one we have,” the statement said.
Investigations were underway, she added, saying that a meeting of ministers was scheduled to take place late Wednesday.
The anonymous email also contained a threat to Meloni, the AP and LaPresse news agency reported; she did not address the threat in her statement.
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The email reportedly contained especially violent threats and was signed by the same name used in last week’s threats against European broadcasters. Investigators have not attributed the threats to any group or state, and there is no evidence linking the hoaxes to any governments, the AP reports.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland confirmed Wednesday that it was investigating the circumstances of threatening emails sent to schools across the country, and said it was treating the incident as a hoax.
“Over 300 schools to date have reported to police receiving the same emailed message which contained a threat. It is believed similar emails have been received by some schools in Scotland,” the statement said. The email originated from outside the U.K., it added.
Assistant Chief Constable Anthony McNally said: “We take incidents of this nature very seriously and we understand the concern in the community, school communities and for students and parents.”
Also on Wednesday, Police Scotland said several schools in Scotland had received “threatening messages,” and were also being treated as hoaxes.
It acknowledged the distress it may have caused to pupils and parents but said there was no requirement to evacuate schools based on the content of the emails, which it said do not “represent a credible threat.”
The school threats came less than a week after flights across Europe faced disruptions after false bomb threats were sent to several airlines, including Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair. The incidents occurred a day after a plane headed for Bulgaria was diverted to Hungary after receiving a similar bomb threat while in the air. No one was injured.
Last month, a flight from Tel Aviv to Vienna made an emergency landing in Bulgaria following a bomb threat.
False bomb threats are relatively common, but the latest raised concerns because they came in the wake of other disruptions across Europe, including attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems and drone incursions as well as bomb threats sent to newsrooms in Ireland and Bulgaria on Friday.
— with files from the Associated Press
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Source: globalnews.ca
