Schools evacuated in Italy following mass bomb threats; Meloni also targeted
Kyiv • UNN
Around 6,300 schools in Italy received fake bomb threats, prompting the evacuation of children. Similar letters were sent to schools in Ireland and Scotland.
On Wednesday, schools across Italy were evacuated after approximately 6,300 educational institutions received bomb threats. The incident was the latest in a series of threats and cyberattacks recently occurring in Europe and targeting supermarkets, blood banks, air traffic control systems and broadcasters, UNN reports, citing Reuters.
Details
Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland also reported that many schools had received similar threats by email from abroad. However, the messages were deemed false, so classes were not disrupted.
In Italy, schools closed immediately after receiving the warnings, forcing many parents to abandon their affairs and urgently collect their children.
"My daughter Daphne started crying because the children did not understand what was happening. When I came to pick her up, she was still very frightened," said Nancy Bego, whose child attends the Mazzini Middle School in Rome.
"It is simply terrible. Obviously, this is just a prank that disrupts lessons and ruins everyone's day."
A copy of the message seen by Reuters also contained a threat against Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. She said the bomb threats posed no real danger, and that the police and other government services were monitoring the situation.
"All the students have been moved to a safe place; they remain under the supervision of teaching staff," one school in Rome told parents via messenger.
According to a copy of the message seen by Reuters journalists, the email received in Italy was signed with the name "Mikhail Andropov, leader of Vilayat Misogynistan."
"The schools' email addresses are publicly available. Sending out such bomb threats was extremely easy," a source in the national security services told Reuters.
The same "author" also claimed responsibility for bomb threats sent by email on Friday to media outlets in Ireland and Bulgaria.
In addition
Some European officials suspect that Russia may be behind a campaign aimed at destabilizing everyday life in European countries that support Ukraine following the Russian invasion.
Russia denies this and accuses the West of conducting a campaign to discredit it.
Iran is another suspect. On Tuesday, France summoned Iran's ambassador, accusing Tehran of carrying out a cyberattack that disabled refrigeration systems at hundreds of supermarkets last week.
Iran rejected the accusations, calling them "groundless and hostile."
According to the Adnkronos news agency, Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto said that the threats received on Wednesday were part of a clear strategy aimed at "spreading fear and creating anxiety."
"Foreign states or hostile actors are not always behind this. There are also people seeking attention, as well as mentally unstable individuals who, at times like these, are simply waiting for an opportunity to sow terror in a city or region," he added.
Antonello Giannelli, head of the Italian Association of School Principals, said the threat messages had been a source of great anxiety for students, their families and school employees.
"Although today's threats are certainly fake, we must not underestimate the consequences of incidents that frighten entire school communities and disrupt the normal course of education," he said.