Italy says 6,300 schools received bomb-threat email

At least 300 schools in Italy were evacuated on Wednesday after receiving bomb-alert messages, the government said. Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said the number of affected schools could rise.

Valditara told Italian broadcaster La7 that officials believed the threats were hoaxes. Police are investigating, Reuters reported. The sender has not been identified.

Reuters also reported that schools in Northern Ireland received a threatening email but were advised to remain open after police judged it was not credible. The cases come amid a wider series of threats and cyberattacks across Europe; authorities have not established whether they are connected.

Update

Italy’s education ministry says 6,300 schools received a bomb-threat email, far more than the 300 schools Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara had earlier said were evacuated. The updated figure counts schools sent the email, not schools evacuated.

The email was signed “Mikhail Andropov”, the same name used in threats sent to Irish and Bulgarian media the previous week, according to ANP and Reuters. The report also says the school threats appear linked to dozens of bomb threats involving European commercial flights, but does not explain the basis for that assessment.

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni was due to hold an emergency meeting with her government and intelligence services on Wednesday to consider measures to prevent further disruption. She said the threats did not pose a danger and that police were monitoring the situation.

Schools in Britain and Ireland also received threats on Wednesday. In Scotland, police said messages were being treated as hoaxes and that they had found nothing to suggest a credible threat; some schools were nevertheless evacuated as a precaution. Earlier reporting on the school threats noted that authorities had not established whether the messages in Italy and Scotland were linked.