Hundreds of schools across Italy have been evacuated after receiving emailed bomb threats, in the latest wave of hoax alerts to hit Europe.
Italian education minister Giuseppe Valditara told the La7 television channel on November 11 that at least 300 schools had been affected. He said the number was expected to rise.
Schools from Rome and Milan to Naples, Potenza and the province of Udine, northeast Italy, halted lessons while police and bomb disposal teams checked the buildings.
The message reached the schools shortly before 10am local time, according to a copy seen by Reuters. Its author claimed to have left a powerful explosive device in a plastic bag, ready to be detonated remotely, and threatened to massacre Italians.
The email also claimed a bomb had been planted in the engine of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s car. It was signed “Mikhail Andropov, leader of the Vilayat of Misoginistan”.
Valditara said the alerts were presumed to be hoaxes, arguing that the sheer number of schools targeted showed how little credibility the threat had. He linked the episode to a wider strategy that had already hit flights and supermarkets.
Defence minister Guido Crosetto said he would report to parliament on the incident. Rome police said an investigation was under way.
The same alias was used in threats emailed on November 6 to newsrooms in Ireland and Bulgaria, which forced the evacuation of RTÉ’s Dublin headquarters. Those messages, headlined “Message to the West”, claimed responsibility for hoax alerts that had disrupted dozens of flights across Europe.
Schools in Scotland and Northern Ireland also received threatening emails on November 11, with evacuations reported in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Fife and the Highlands. The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said messages sent to more than 300 schools were being treated as a hoax.
Police Scotland said there was “nothing to suggest” the emails represented a credible threat. Northern Ireland’s Education Authority said the message had “similarities with a bogus threat sent last month”.
Italy had already been targeted on November 2, when emails purporting to come from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps reached 271 schools. Three days later, hoax alerts forced flights to and from Rome and Milan to divert or land under military escort, though no explosives were found.
Security experts have suggested the campaign could be a way for Russia to punish member states that have armed or financed Kyiv during the Ukraine War, Reuters reported. Moscow has denied involvement.
The European Commission said it was following the threats closely, though EU Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said on November 5 it was too early to say whether the incidents were linked. National aviation security experts were due to meet in Brussels on November 11.
