Some 6,300 schools across Italy and more than 700 in Scotland and Northern Ireland have received bomb threats, according to local authorities. In Italy, several buildings were evacuated as a precaution, but Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said checks had so far not indicated any evidence of “concrete danger.” “These reports seem rather linked to a strategy intended to cause alarm and concern,” he said on Facebook. Scotland’s Education Secretary Mairi McAllan said there was no risk to the public and specialist cybercrime officers were working to identify the source of the messages. In Northern Ireland, education officials told schools to remain open unless otherwise instructed by police. It is unclear if the incidents are related. “As a parent and as a constituency MP, I understand how worrying this will be for parents, students, carers and school staff,” McAllan said. Police Scotland had previously said the warnings were “immediately assessed” as hoaxes. However, some local authorities confirmed that some schools had been evacuated. “Our advice is that there is no requirement to evacuate schools or keep children away from education based solely on the content of the emails,” Police Scotland said. Italian officials said a single email appeared to have been sent Wednesday to the inboxes of 6,300 out of a total of 7,476 public schools, and private schools were not affected. The message, supposedly from a certain “Mikhail Andropov, leader of Vilayat di Misoginistan”, caused alarm in many schools. The BBC saw the email sent to Scottish schools which appeared to have similar wording, and also referenced the name Mikhail Andropov, albeit as the leader of a “Red Owl” project. Italy’s Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara said the incidents involving Italian schools were likely a “cyber attack, not a genuine risk”, adding that there appeared to be a clear strategy behind the series of threats across Europe targeting flights, supermarkets and even hospitals. Airports, along with airlines elsewhere in Europe, were hit by a series of bomb hoaxes last week that sparked a series of scares, evacuations and widespread disruption. Although a misogynistic extremist group claimed responsibility for a series of threats, it later denied any link to the false warnings.
