Bomb threats targeting schools in Europe: hundreds of establishments evacuated in Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom

About 300 schools across Italy received emails containing bomb threats on Wednesday, according to Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara.

Schools were targeted by bomb threats and threatening messages on Wednesday, November 11, in several European countries. The police are mobilized for checks in Italy, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Hundreds of schools have been evacuated.

No “concrete danger”, according to Giorgia Meloni. “These reports seem rather to be part of a strategy aimed at causing alarm and concern,” the head of the Italian government wrote on Facebook. At least 300 schools are affected by bomb threats across the country, said Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara, quoted by the Ansa news agency.

Alerts deemed “not credible” in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Police in Northern Ireland say they are investigating "threatening emails" sent to more than 300 schools and similar threats have been received by establishments in Scotland. In Ireland, such messages were sent to "a number of educational establishments", underlines the police, who consider that "this threat is not credible and do not recommend" any evacuation.

The newspaper La Repubblica publishes a video of students evacuated after the broadcast of a bomb threat by email which affected dozens of establishments in the country.

Schools in the United Kingdom are also affected by threatening messages, the Scottish police announced on X. “Our investigations have established that there is no evidence to suggest that this is a credible threat,” police said.

Ireland is also affected by bomb threats targeting schools in several cities. Irish police "have received a large number of telephone calls and will contact each school in turn, knowing that with the volume of calls this could take some time," she said in a statement, cited by The Irish Times. She adds that "this threat is not credible and is not recommending that any schools evacuate. Gardaí are in contact with several schools."

In Northern Ireland, the police announced in a press release that 300 schools had received the same email containing threats. “The checks have, for the moment, revealed nothing abnormal. Based on the investigations and the information collected to date, the police consider this email, originating from abroad, to be a hoax,” it is specified.

"At present, the checks carried out do not reveal any element allowing us to assume the existence of a concrete danger. These reports seem rather to be part of a strategy aimed at causing alarm and concern; in-depth investigations are underway on this subject", announced the head of the Italian government, Giorgia Meloni in a message on Facebook.

Around 300 schools across Italy received emails containing bomb threats. This figure "is expected to increase; the number of three hundred corresponded to the situation about half an hour ago," said Education Minister Giuseppe Valditara, quoted by Ansa.

Many schools have been evacuated across Italy after bomb threats, the country's authorities say. Schools in the UK and Ireland have been targeted with similar threatening messages.