Italian Schools Face Second Day of Bomb Hoax Threats
Approximately 1,800 Italian schools were evacuated on Thursday following a second wave of email bomb threats, prompting government guidance to reduce unnecessary panic.
By Ricardo Brooks ·
Schools across Italy experienced a second consecutive day of disruption on Thursday as thousands of institutions reported receiving bomb threats. The incidents triggered fresh evacuations and widespread concern among staff and families, marking a significant escalation in the recent series of false alarms affecting the country.
Roughly 1,800 schools, spanning from Milan in the north to Sicily in the south, received communications similar to those that caused chaos on Wednesday. Despite the scale of the alerts, no explosive devices have been found in any of the affected buildings. The recurrence of these threats has led to renewed panic across the education sector.
In response to the situation, the Italian government issued advice to schools regarding evacuation protocols. Officials stated that in the absence of concrete evidence beyond the simple receipt of a mass email indicating a danger, buildings should not be evacuated. This guidance aims to balance safety measures with operational stability.
The latest wave of threats follows a similar incident on Wednesday, where an email was sent to 6,300 of the total 7,476 Italian state schools. The message was attributed to a sender identified as Mikhail Andropov, described as the leader of Vilayat di Misoginistan. Some officials believe the original threat originated in Taiwan.
The Thursday message, also signed by Mikhail Andropov, is reportedly linked to a hacked account belonging to a teacher in the Philippines. This connection suggests that the threats may be leveraging compromised digital credentials to spread the hoax widely. The consistent signature across both days adds to the mystery surrounding the origin of the alerts.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni characterized the events as a strategy intended to cause alarm and concern. Her comments reflect the government's effort to frame the incidents as a coordinated attempt to disrupt public life and test the nation's response to potential security threats.
Parents and community members have expressed growing anxiety, demanding greater clarity and decisive action from the authorities. The lack of a confirmed culprit or device has led to frustration, with many questioning the efficiency of the current communication channels between schools and government bodies.
The situation has also sparked public debate and protest. La Repubblica newspaper reported demonstrations in Rome against a specific decision made by the headmaster of a secondary school. She had chosen not to evacuate her building after noticing typos in the threatening message, leading her to deem it fake. Protesters are now calling for new national guidelines to standardize how schools handle such future alerts.
The Italian incidents occur against a backdrop of similar bomb hoaxes in other parts of Europe. Schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland also received threats on Wednesday, though it remains unclear if these are connected to the Italian cases. Additionally, a bomb alert at a Calais rail station on Thursday delayed train services in northern France.
These events follow a string of false alarms at airports and airlines across several European countries last week. While an extremist misogynistic group initially claimed responsibility for some of these threats, it later denied any link to the specific false warnings sent to Italian schools, leaving the true source of the current campaign unknown.
