Hoax bomb warnings force evacuation of thousands of Italian schools

Authorities evacuated about 6,300 schools across Italy on Wednesday after bomb warnings reached them, while similar e-mail threats struck schools in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Ireland, which police classed as hoaxes.

The News International said the messages claimed a powerful explosive device with a remote trigger was in every building and that a bomb sat in the engine of the prime minister’s car.

SBS News and HuffPost reported that at the Mazzini middle school in Rome, parent Nensi Bego said her daughter Dafne cried because pupils did not understand what was happening and remained shaken when collected, and that a Rome school used a messaging app to tell parents all students were in a safe area and supervised by teaching staff. CrossRoadsToday.com said dozens of kindergarten and primary pupils at the Quirinio Visconti primary school in central Rome were evacuated on Wednesday, with parents told to collect them.

HuffPost reported that Bego said, “This is so annoying. It’s obvious it’s just a hoax that disrupts lessons and disrupts everyone’s day.” SBS News and HuffPost said Antonello Giannelli, who leads the Italian School Principals Association, said the alerts upset students, families and staff, and that the consequences of incidents that alarm school communities and disrupt education cannot be underestimated.

SBS News and CrossRoadsToday.com said Police Scotland said threatening messages reached schools, called them hoaxes, and advised that e-mails by themselves did not justify evacuation, though some local authorities confirmed that some schools had been evacuated and pupils were sent home. The News International said Scotland’s education secretary, Mairi McAllan, said the public faced no risk and that specialist cyber-crime officers were trying to find the source. SBS News said The Herald reported that evacuations affected several Scottish schools and pupils were sent home.

CrossRoadsToday.com said police in Northern Ireland counted more than 300 schools receiving a threatening e-mail from outside the United Kingdom on Wednesday and treated it as a hoax, while The News International said education officials told schools to stay open unless police advised otherwise. The Education Authority said the message resembled a hoax from last month and that no evidence of a credible threat existed. Assistant Chief Constable Anthony McNally said, “Our enquiries are ongoing, however, at this stage we consider risk to the public as low.”

Police in the Republic of Ireland said a generic communication to several educational establishments on Wednesday was not credible and did not advise evacuations, CrossRoadsToday.com said. SBS News said police in Britain and Ireland said they investigated threatening e-mails sent to hundreds of schools and told teachers not to evacuate. CrossRoadsToday.com said a Dublin teacher said a bomb threat arrived at her school at 10:55 a.m. local time on Wednesday, the building was not evacuated, and the day continued as normal.

Reuters saw a copy showing the Italian e-mail carried the signature of Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan, and the same signature appeared on threats to newsrooms in Ireland and Bulgaria during the past week. That author took credit for Friday e-mail bomb threats against newsrooms in Ireland and Bulgaria. A national security source told Reuters that the school e-mails are public and that sending the bomb alerts was easy.

SBS News, HuffPost and The News International said Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Facebook that based on checks, no element had emerged to suggest a concrete danger, and that police and other public bodies were monitoring developments. CrossRoadsToday.com said she later stated in a video statement that all threats were fake, there was no proof of an attack, and similar messages could arrive again, while warning against guessing publicly about responsibility.

SBS News and HuffPost said Italy’s defence minister, Guido Crosetto, described Wednesday’s threats as part of a clear plan to spread fear and create anxiety, and that such acts are not always carried out by foreign countries or hostile entities, with attention-seekers and lunatics possibly trying to unleash terror.

SBS News and HuffPost said the school warnings in Italy sit within a wider series of threats and cyber attacks across Europe that have targeted supermarkets, blood banks, air traffic and broadcasters. CrossRoadsToday.com said recent hoax bomb threats on European flights and cyber attacks against supermarket refrigeration systems across multiple countries including Italy preceded the current wave, and that in the last few weeks cyber attacks have struck supermarket refrigeration systems in France, Sweden, Belgium and Ireland.

SBS News and HuffPost said France called in Iran’s ambassador on Tuesday after accusing Tehran of a cyber attack that disabled refrigerators in numerous supermarkets last week, and that Iran rejected the accusations as baseless and hostile. SBS News and HuffPost said several European officials suspect Russia is running a campaign to disrupt everyday life in countries backing Ukraine after Moscow’s invasion, and that Russia denies any role and says the West is conducting a smear campaign.

CrossRoadsToday.com said the European Union said last week it was too early to determine if the bomb threat incidents were connected, and that security analysts and government ministers have said the wave could be part of a wider hybrid campaign (a campaign to disrupt daily life) or a series of malicious hoaxes. SBS News said the incidents have added to rising concern in Europe about a possible escalation of hybrid warfare (a campaign to disrupt daily life).

SBS News said Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Saturday that cyber criminals were sharing his personal data online due to Italy’s support for Ukraine. He said cyber criminals were targeting him because of Italy’s support for Ukraine.